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Home , Charmaine Yoest, Jay Nordlinger, John Fund, National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru, Reihan Salam

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March 28, 2016 $4.99

The Cllown Prince & THE 2016 RACE

DAVID FRENCH N N KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON THE EDITORS

www.nationalreview.com base_milliken-mar 22.qxd 5/11/2015 1:07 PM Page 2 base_milliken-mar 22.qxd 5/11/2015 1:07 PM Page 3 TOC_QXP-1127940144.qxp 3/9/2016 2:39 PM Page 1 Contents

MARCH 28, 2016 | VOLUME LXVIII, NO. 5 | www.nationalreview.com

ON THE COVER Page 30

The Father-Führer Charles C. W. Cooke on NASCAR The white American underclass is in p. 35 thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s BOOKS, ARTS speeches make them feel good. So & MANNERS does OxyContin. What they need isn’t 40 A TURNING POINT FOR analgesics, literal or political. They CONSERVATIVES Henry Olsen reviews Why the need real opportunity, which means Right Went Wrong: that they need real change, which from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond, means that they need U-Haul. Kevin D. Williamson by E. J. Dionne Jr.

COVER: 42 THE CRITIC’S ART Elizabeth Powers reviews Better Living through Criticism: How ARTICLES to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth, by A. O. Scott. 18 NEVER TRUMP by Ramesh Ponnuru Politics and principle alike provide reasons to oppose him. 44 INSIDE THE MASTER TRUMP’S TENT REVIVAL by David French Lauren Weiner reviews 20 Autobiographies, by Henry James. Evangelicals are supporting the mogul, but far from monolithically. BEYOND THE WALL by Reihan Salam 45 THE REAL LAND OF 22 ILLUSIONS On immigration from Mexico, Trump is not entirely wrong. Peter Tonguette reviews West of SOVEREIGNTY ASSAULTED by John R. Bolton & John Yoo Eden: An American Place, 25 by Jean Stein. Will the Constitution be cast aside in favor of international law? FREEDOM U by 47 FILM: TESTIMONY FROM HELL 27 reviews Son of Saul. A unicorn of a university in Central America.

FEATURES SECTIONS 30 THE FATHER-FÜHRER by Kevin D. Williamson Chaos in the family, chaos in the state. 4 Letters to the Editor BLACK VOTERS, TOO, WANT A CHOICE, NOT AN ECHO by Theodore Johnson 6 The Week 33 The Long View ...... Rob Long The GOP and conservative principles can supply the lack. 38 39 Athwart ...... 35 NASCAR NATION by Charles C. W. Cooke 43 Poetry ...... Len Krisak Americans love the speedway, even if elites don’t. 48 Happy Warrior ...... Sonny Bunch

NATIONAL REVIEW (ISSN: 0028-0038) is published bi-weekly, except for the first issue in January, by N ATIONAL REVIEW, Inc., at 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mailing offices. © , Inc., 2016. Address all editorial mail, manuscripts, letters to the editor, etc., to Editorial Dept., N ATIONAL REVIEW, 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Address all subscription mail orders, changes of address, undeliverable copies, etc., to NATIONALREVIEW, Circulation Dept., P. O. Box 433015, Palm Coast, Fla. 32143-3015; phone, 386-246-0118, Monday–Friday, 8:00A.M . to 10:30 P.M. Eastern time. Adjustment requests should be accompanied by a current mailing label or facsimile. Direct classified advertising inquiries to: Classifieds Dept., NATIONALREVIEW, 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016 or call 212-679- 7330. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to N ATIONAL REVIEW, Circulation Dept., P. O. Box 433015, Palm Coast, Fla. 32143-3015. Printed in the U.S.A. RATES: $59.00 a year (24 issues). Add $21.50 for Canada and other foreign subscriptions, per year. (All payments in U.S. currency.) The editors cannot be responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork unless return postage or, better, a stamped, self-addressed envelope is enclosed. Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors. base_milliken-mar 22.qxd 3/7/2016 12:29 PM Page 1 letters_QXP-1127940387.qxp 3/9/2016 2:40 PM Page 4 Letters

MARCH 28 ISSUE; PRINTED MARCH 10

EDITOR Richard Lowry Senior Editors My Friend Florence / / Jay Nordlinger Ramesh Ponnuru / David Pryce-Jones Managing Editor Jason Lee Steorts Literary Editor Michael Potemra I’d like to express my thanks Vice President, Editorial Operations Christopher McEvoy Washington Editor Eliana Johnson to John O’Sullivan for his Executive Editor Reihan Salam honest and insightful tribute Roving Correspondent Kevin D. Williamson National Correspondent John J. Miller to my dear old friend Florence Senior Political Correspondent Jim Geraghty Chief Political Correspondent Tim Alberta King, who died recently after Art Director Luba Kolomytseva Deputy Managing Editors a long and glorious career Nicholas Frankovich / Fred Schwarz as a writer in varied genres Production Editor Katie Hosmer Assistant to the Editor Rachel Ogden (“More than a ‘Misanthrope,’” Research Associate Alessandra Trouwborst February 15). Hard as it is to Contributing Editors Shannen Coffin / Ross Douthat / Roman Genn believe, Florence and I first Arthur L. Herman / Lawrence Kudlow met 60 years ago at the Uni - Mark R. Levin / / Rob Long Mario Loyola / Jim Manzi / Andrew C. McCarthy versity of Mississippi, where Kate O’Beirne / Andrew Stuttaford / Robert VerBruggen she was studying history NATIONALREVIEWONLINE and I was working on a Ph.D. Managing Editors Katherine Connell / Edward John Craig Deputy Managing Editor Nat Brown in English. Among a large National-Affairs Columnist Staff Writers Charles C. W. Cooke / David French percentage of graduate stu- Senior Political Reporter Alexis Levinson Political Reporter Brendan Bordelon dents who were radicals of Reporter one kind or another, Flor - Associat e Editors Molly Powell / Nick Tell Digital Director Ericka Anderson ence and I soon found each Assistant Editor Mark Antonio Wright Technical Services Russell Jenkins other and recognized a fel- Web Editorial Assistant Grant DeArmitt Web Developer Wendy Weihs low conservative. That kin- Web Producer Scott McKim ship of spirit served as the Florence King, 1936−2016

EDITORS- AT- LARGE bond for our six-decade- Linda Bridges / / John O’Sullivan long friendship. NATIONALREVIEWINSTITUTE I delighted all those years in her books—hilarious, but also perceptive BUCKLEYFELLOWSINPOLITICALJOURNALISM Elaina Plott / Ian Tuttle and truthful—and her NATIONAL REVIEW columns. Best of all, I cherish Contributors the many letters she wrote to me, all of which I have saved, reread often, Hadley Arke s / James Bowman / Eliot A. Cohen and shared with like-minded conservative friends. In the last couple of Dinesh D’Souza / Chester E. Finn Jr. / Neal B. Freeman James Gardner / David Gelernter / George Gilder years, we commiserated with each other on the pains and losses inherent / Kevin A. Hassett / Charles R. Kesler David Klinghoffer / Anthony Lejeune / D. Keith Mano in old age. Both of us were only children in our families who had chosen / Alan Reynolds / Tracy Lee Simmons / Vin Weber to spend our lives alone—without regret—depending upon ourselves for Chief Financial Officer James X. Kilbridge spiritual and emotional support. Accounting Manager Galina Veygman Accountant Lyudmila Bolotinskaya These letters were atypical, concerned as they were with morose topics, Business Services Alex Batey Circulation Manager Jason Ng but even in the midst of discussing such problems, Florence’s incompa- Advertising Director Jim Fowler rable sense of humor never failed, and in the very last of those brilliant Advertising Manager Kevin Longstreet letters, she told me that she was ready to leave this life but hoped to Assistant to the Publisher Brooke Rogers remain long enough to “find out what is going to happen on Downton Director of Revenue Erik Netcher Abbey.” I received notification of her death minutes before the first PUBLISHERCHAIRMAN episode of the last season of that series began. Alas, Florence missed it. Jack Fowler John Hillen Rest in peace, my dear old friend. “When comes such another?” FOUNDER William F. Buckley Jr.

PATRONSANDBENEFACTORS Kenneth Holditch Robert Agostinelli Mr. and Mrs. Michael Conway New Orleans, La. Mark and Mary Davis Virginia James Christopher M. Lantrip Brian and Deborah Murdock Peter J. Travers

Letters may be sub mitted by e-mail to [email protected].

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n We wish Trump talked this much about the size of his government.

n Did the Founding Fathers talk about penises come election time? Pretty close, actually. Thomas Jefferson’s 1804 reelec- tion was enlivened by a print titled “A Philosophic Cock,” which showed Jefferson as a rooster standing alongside a black hen representing his alleged slave mistress Sally Hemings. “Cock” then had the multiple meanings it has today. But of course Jefferson himself did not publicly promote or discuss this print. So Donald Trump has, where vulgarity is concerned, brought American politics to a new low. In other ways, how - ever, our politics is still notably clean, hard though that may be to believe. No one is killed in duels (Alexander Hamilton), no one is beaten on the floor of the Senate (Charles Su mner), and no one is running from a jail cell (James Michael Curley). N.B. to Hillary: Curley won, so chin up.

n , the GOP’s 2012 nominee, blasted Trump, the GOP’s 2016 front-runner, in a jeremiad at the University of Utah that was mild and grave in manner, sulfurous in content. It began with Trump’s policy shortfalls, domestic and foreign: his refusal to address the entitlement debt load, his reckless sometimes endorse unsatisfactory rivals. Yet to betray a signa- talk of trade , a fondness for Putin matched only by a con- ture issue so dramatically is . A sad finis for a politician who tempt for George W. Bush. Romney then reviewed Trump’s was once energetic, combative, and smart. business failures—the eponymous “University,” Airlines, Magazine, Vodka, and Steaks—and his failures of character: n is the most high-profile and effective immigra- “the bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the tion hawk in Congress, and yet he has thrown in with a man third-grade theatrics.” (In a deft touch, Romney asked his lis- whose hiring practices he should abhor. Trump uses H-2B visas teners to watch how Trump “responds to my speech.” Trump to fill positions at his Mar-a-Lago Club with foreign workers and responded—like a third-grader.) Finally, Romney warned that has justified it by saying there are jobs that Americans won’t do Trump’s tax returns, hitherto as secret as Masonic rituals, (although a goodly proportion of the American population would if released produce “bombshells”: “I predict that he worked as waiters or waitresses at some point in their lives). doesn’t give much, if anything, to the disabled and to our vet- Despite his reputation as an über-hawk on immigration, Trump erans.” Romney courted Trump’s support four years ago— supports what is in effect a “touch-back” amnesty on steroids before his recent egregious blunders (e.g., pretending (he’ll deport every illegal immigrant, then bring the terrific ones ignorance of David Duke) but long af ter his pattern of bluster back), and he has no idea what his position on legal immigration and failure was notorious. Romney acknowledged this in a is supposed to be. Twice now during debates he has contradicted tweet after his speech, but should have done so in the speech his written position by saying he supports more high-skilled itself. That aside, it was a sterling performance: solid, impres- visas, forcing his staff to clean it up afterwards. It isn’t surprising sive, selfless. that Trump is playing people on immigration; we just never expected Jeff Sessions to be among the gullible. n New Jersey governor began his presidential campaign in the spring of 2015 by proposing to tackle entitle- n Since the mid Sixties, public figures have been considered ments, including Social Security. “How can anyone have a se - libeled only when they can prove that they have been the ri ous national conversation about the future of our country,” he victims of actual malice—falsehoods that were known to be asked radio host Hugh Hewitt, “and not discuss this issue?” untrue when they were published, or that were published Christie has ended his campaign, almost a year later, by en - with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. Trump wants dorsing Donald Trump, whose solution to our looming Social to change all that. At a rally in Fort Worth, he promised “to Security burden is to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse” (in oth- open up those libel laws.” When the press “writes a hit piece, er words, he has no solution at all). For every winner in politics we can sue them and win money. . . . You see, with me, they ROMAN GENN there is at least on e loser; and losers, from weariness or spite, [won’t be] protected, because I’m not like other people. . . . We’re

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THE WEEK

going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued be- n David Duke is a Trump man. The erstwhile Grand Wizard fore.” Trump is such an Old Faithful of heedless promises told his followers that a vote for anyone but Trump is “really and insults that this has gotten lost in the spume. But his vin- treason to your heritage.” Louis Farrakhan is not quite a Trump dictive nature—he still seethes over decades-old slights man, but “I like what I’m looking at,” he says. Jews control (cf. “short-fingered vulgarian”)—suggests that he spoke from politics, he says, and Trump has stood up to them. As can be the heart. President Trump could not “open up” libel law at overheard at Trump rallies, Les beaux esprits se rencontrent. will. But his tenure would be a saturnalia of bellowing, spite, and recrimination. n Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska has been attracting national conservative notice with thoughtful remarks about the dysfunc- n Unable to offer more than a sentence or two about health care tion of the Senate, the need to restore the separation of powers, at a debate, Trump was pressed on it, and repeated himself. and the country’s vulnerability to cyberattacks. All of that was Perhaps embarrassed by this performance, he had his campaign praiseworthy, but none of it was risky. In recent months, though, release a health-care plan a few days later. He shouldn’t have. he has also been taking on Donald Trump, even at the risk of los- The plan suggests that someone around Trump knows only a bit ing some Republican support, and he has done so while remain- more about health care than he does. It discusses creating tax- ing unaligned with any rival candidate. He argues that Trump has advantaged health savings accounts, betraying no knowledge no commitment to constitutional conservatism. Trump has that HSAs have been in the law since 2003. It says that people responded by saying that Sasse looks like “a gym rat.” Sasse is should be able to buy health policies across state lines only if the first senator to announce that even if Trump wins the nomi- those policies conform to their state’s regulations—which, again, nation, he will not vote for him in November—instead backing a federal law already allows. If earlier Trump-campaign plans on third-party candidate or writing someone in. ( gov- taxes and immigration are any indication, this health-care plan ernor later said the same.) At a time when many will not affect what the candidate says on the stump or in inter- Republicans are cozying up to Trump, Sasse deserves credit for views. In this case that might be a good thing. taking a stand on principle instead.

n Trump was talking about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and negotiating a deal. “Let me be sort of a neutral guy,” he n Ben Carson rose from a difficult childhood to a distin- said. The instinct to be a neutral, or an honest broker, in a dis- guished career as a neurosurgeon and best-selling pute may seem laudable. But Americans and others have author. After a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast learned something over a period of almost 70 years: When one excited conservatives nationally, he thought he would side wants to coexist and the other wants to exist alone, neu- try another career—politician—and start at the top, by trality is a fool’s errand. running for president. But he did not know much about policy or politics, and did not find people to n The front-runner has a three-point plan for winning the supply his lack. In the weeks before he dropped out, against ISIS: murder, torture, and atrocities. For months, Trump he was unable to answer whether his campaign had has insisted that American soldiers should torture terrorists and become a scam run for his kill terrorists’ families. Moreover, he’s repeatedly praised hangers-on. As a re - mythical American atrocities (that U.S. troops pacified the sult of his campaign, Phil ip pines in part by dipping bullets in pig’s blood before he will be known by killing Muslim prisoners). Under fire, he has backed away from more people for run- explicitly endorsing torture or murder. Instead he now says he ning for a job he had wants to “increase the laws” to allow American soldiers to more no business seeking closely mimic ISIS’s tactics, believing that it’s only “political than for his genuine correctness” that prevents us from beheading our enemies. Trump accomplishments. doesn’t understand the American warrior. The American mili- A lesson in hubris. tary would defy orders to target innocent women and children. Like the law, honor is a concept Trump can’t comprehend.

n Over the years, Trump has been consistent in his admiration n portrays the probe of her serial transmis- of strength—strength of a certain kind. In 1990, he was inter- sions of classified information by private e-mail as a mere viewed by Playboy. He said he was worried about the Soviet “security inquiry” focused on her private server, not on her. VIA AP Union—or, as he put it, “Russia is out of control, and the lead- That story crumbled when the Justice Department conferred ership knows it. That’s my problem with Gorbachev. Not a immunity from prosecution on the aide who set up the firm enough hand.” His interviewer said, “You mean, ‘firm “home-brew” system. Longtime Clinton fixer Bryan Pagli a- hand’ as in China?” Trump answered, “When the students no had asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege against self- AUGUSTA CHRONICLE poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost incrimination to avoid testifying before the House Benghazi THE / blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they committee about enabling Clinton to conduct State De part - put it down with strength. That shows you the power of ment business by private e-mail. The immunity grant is sig- strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak . . . as nificant. It confirms that the probe is a criminal investigation MICHAEL SULLIVAN - being spit on by the rest of the world.” Trump’s admiration of to which the FBI has dedicated robust resources. It means JON Putin is no surprise. there is Justice Department buy-in: Only its lawyers are au-

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THE WEEK

thorized to confer immunity, so obviously the FBI is working classified information passed through Clinton’s non-secure in tandem with prosecutors. This is important because, no server. The case is serious, as is the damage likely done to matter how strong a case the FBI assembles, only the Justice national security. Department can convene a grand jury and propose an indict- ment. Federal law clearly prohibits the unauthorized storage n Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the whitest red you’ll ever and dissemination of classified information, and government see, declared during a Democratic debate: “When you’re officials (such as former CIA director David Petraeus) are white. . . you don’t know what it’s like to be poor.” This is an prosecuted for violations. Over 2,000 e-mails containing odd thing to hear from a senator from Vermont, which is 95 per-

We Ignore the Debt at Our Peril

RITING in this space five years ago, I made the con- during that recession, one gauges the added increase in troversial prediction that the rating of U.S. govern- government debt that would occur under a similar down- W ment debt would soon be downgraded. In August turn, then the ratio would reach the 133 percent threshold of that year, Standard & Poor’s duly obliged. I revisited the by 2019. topic in November 2011 and argued that the U.S. would Imagine instead that there were a doubling of interest probably not regain its stain-free AAA rating anytime soon: rates along with another Great Recession—a scenario that The history of downgrades is that they endure. At this writ- does not seem too unlikely, given that a rise in interest rates ing, the U.S. has yet to regain that rating. engineered by an inflation-wary Fed would probably pre- Today, we are deep into a presidential election, and no cede a contraction in the business cycle. In that case, as candidate of either major party has made much of the the chart shows, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio would surpass national debt. Bernie Sanders has proposed perhaps $20 133 percent by 2017. trillion in new spending and Mrs. Clinton has suggested a Many turn to the comfort of baseline forecasts such as good deal of her own, while the Republicans have tended the CBO’s when assessing the fiscal future of the United to emphasize tax reductions. Chris Christie was the candi- States. But the possibility of another recession or an date who focused most on the debt, offering an ambitious upward rise in interest rates certainly cannot be ruled out. Social Security reform. Even the less rosy mainstream forecasts tend to assume Is it right to ignore the debt? Have the fiscal-policy de - that there will be no business-cycle shocks and no upward velop ments of the past few years fixed the problem? surges in interest rates. Not so long ago, the Greek economy was in free fall, If our banks are required to survive “stress tests” that Greeks were rioting in the streets, and Germans were pony- envision reasonable downside scenarios, our government ing up billions to bail them out. We have seen what a debt should have to survive them, too. Today’s government fails, crisis looks like. Our politicians assume that it can’t happen and that by a large margin. here, and that debt reduction is not urgent. But this could be a big mistake. —KEVIN A. HASSETT Many accounts date the origins of the Greek debt crisis to December 2009. According to the World Bank, the ratio of Greek-government debt to GDP in 2009, the last year before the crisis unfolded, was 133.2. The Greeks could A Greece Fire in the U.S.? have handed over their entire GDP for the year to creditors

and still been short. Let’s take that 133 percent ratio as a 160%

cliff to avoid. 139% 140% 133% 133% As the chart shows, the U.S. might be closer to the brink than mainstream forecasts tend to imply. It represents, 120% 103% under different economic scenarios, the ratio of U.S.- 100%

government debt held by the public to GDP. 80% Extrapolating from the Congressional Budget Office’s 60%

long-term budget projections, which include many Debt-to-GDP Ratio rosy-scenario assumptions, we won’t look like Greece 40% for about 40 years. That’s not very comforting—yet it is 20%

also optimistic. 0% Greece U.S. U.S. U.S. The CBO assumes that things will be smooth and 2009 2014 2019 2017 (with another (with another Great pleasant. But what if there were another business-cycle Great Recession) Recession and an alternative interest- contraction on par with the Great Recession? If, based rate scenario) on the debt-to-GDP increase experienced by the U.S.

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cent white with a poverty rate of 12 percent. (In Vermont, say about the real-world consequences of a Trumpian trade you’re ten times as likely to be poor as you are to be black.) policy: nothing to say about retaliatory tariffs on our exporters, Next door in Maine, the population is slightly whiter and even or about the effect of our own tariffs on American manufactur- poorer. The poorest county in the United States, in eastern ers who buy inputs from China. It’s most persuasive about the , is almost exclusively white. White people don’t negative effect of trade on particular communities, which know what it’s like to be poor, Senator Sanders? They sure will nobody had ever doubted. Free-traders sometimes sound un - when you’re president. worldly, even utopian. But letting people buy and sell abroad without interference from the government is better than the n In the Illinois senate in the 1990s, fought ef - available alternatives. forts to protect the right to life of infants who survived abortion. He carried his bone-chilling record on abortion with him to the n The city of Flint, Mich., was for generations ruled by an in - White House. When the in vit ed him com pe tent and often corrupt Democratic machine. When the to give its commencement address in 2009, its public-relations city went into an extended financial crisis, a Democratic emer- people tried to soften the offense by suggesting that he was gency manager was appointed to reform its finances. The city’s being twinned with Mary Ann Glendon, the eloquently pro-life Democratic leadership decided to build an expensive new water law professor to whom Notre Dame was presenting its annual system as an economy-stimulating infrastructure project, which Laetare Medal, “in recognition of out standing service to the annoyed the Democrats in nearby Detroit, who had been earning Church and society.” Recognizing how she was being used, a nice income providing Flint with Detroit’s finest tap water. The Glendon declined the award. This year, Notre Dame is making Detroit Democrats retaliated against the Flint Democrats by Letting people buy and sell abroad without interference from the government is better than the available alternatives.

a similar play, giving the Laetare Medal to that odd couple Joe ending their aqueous relationship earlier than planned, and the Biden and John Boehner, a Democrat and a Republican. Both Flint Democrats turned to an alternative source of water, the are Catholic, at least nominally. They have the same initials. Flint River, as a temporary measure. The Democrats who run One expressly opposes the Church’s clear teaching on the sanc- Flint’s government consulted with the Democratic union men tity of life. The other supports it. Here is a riddle: When is the who run its city agencies and came up with a water-treatment recipient of an honor too honorable to accept it? process for that Flint River water, which turned out to be inef- fective. The residents of Flint, including its vulnerable children, n The Supreme Court heard arguments about abortion regula- were exposed to high levels of lead in the water as a result. The tions in Texas. The abortion lobby is claiming that regulations Democrats who run Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection ostensibly designed to protect patients’ safety are imposing an Agency learned of this, and did nothing. This sent the Demo - “undue burden” on the right to abortion. The four most liberal crats running for that party’s presidential nomination into a tizzy justices are likely to vote against any abortion regulations, and of moral intoxication, during which they called for the resigna- Justice Kennedy might vote with them. Two considerations tion of . . . the Republican governor of . that may and should sway him the other way: States have wide latitude to make their own decisions concerning how to protect n Residents of high-crime neighborhoods in public health free of second-guessing from federal courts; and complain to police most about public disorder, not violent fel - the record of the case does not even establish that the law has o nies. When he assumed office as police commissioner un der caused abortionists to close their businesses. The Court might Mayor in 1994, William Bratton instituted well send this case back to lower courts for fact-finding. “broken-windows” policing, to ensure public order and, in the Ideally, what it would do is admit that the Constitution allows pro cess, also public safety, as the same criminal often commits legislatures to burden the right to abortion or even refuse to offenses against both. Recently Manhattan district attorney agree that it exists. Cyrus Vance Jr. announced that his office and the New York City Police Department will focus on “serious crimes”—that is, no n Protectionists have been riding high in American politics, longer will such offenses as drinking or urinating on the street and in recent months they have acquired a tiny bit of intellec- lead to arrest and an appearance before a judge and prosecutor. tual respectability too. A much-discussed academic paper has At most, the offender will be handed a summons, but arrested concluded that trade with China has depressed many American criminals already have a high rate of evading warrants; they labor markets without leading to net job growth overall. So are less likely to comply with the law when it means paying should we impose 45 perce nt tariffs on China to make America fines for quality-of-life offenses. Mayor Bill de Blasio has said great again? Not so fast. It’s one paper; it lacks a plausible he envisions the other boroughs following Manhattan’s lead account of why trade would reduce employment on net; and it and discontinuing broken-windows policing. The cost will be suggests that the shock to American markets created by borne by the whole city, eventually, but by its poorest, highest- Chinese trade is already over. Most important, it has nothing to crime neighborhoods first.

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n California’s remarkably partisan attorney general, Kamala out: The American Association of University Professors has Harris, is seeking a Senate seat. She wants to be the new Barbara an nounced a formal investigation into Click’s firing, citing Boxer, but she’s shaping up to be the new Lois Lerner, using the “academic freedom” concerns. Nonsense. Neither the First state’s tax law to harass conservative activist groups, in this case Amend ment nor the most expansive interpretation of academic the Foundation. IRS rules require freedom grants professors the right to assault students. There some nonprofits, AFP Foundation among them, to disclose used to be schools that taught such things. major donors; those disclosures are supposed to be kept private by the IRS, but Barack Obama’s politicized tax agency has n Calling “participation in academic and athletic competi- failed on that count. Nonprofits also register with the state of tions” at public schools a “privilege,” Virginia governor Terry California, and Harris has demanded that the AFP Foundation McAuliffe vetoed a bill that would have let home-schooled turn over its donor list. Why? Ask the people at the National Or- families take part. Privilege? They paid for that soccer field, gan i za tion for Marriage, whose donor information was illegally Mr. McAuliffe. leaked by the IRS to facilitate retribution against and harassment of its supporters. Harris is engaged in straight-up political bully- n “Cessation of hostilities” is the agreed phrase for the mo - ing here, and should be stopped. The AFP Foun dation has taken men tary suspension of the all-in political wrestling in Syria, its case to court, and it deserves to prevail. and it is not to be confused with “truce,” even less with “cease- fire.” An outright winner from the protracted civil war, Russian n The University of Missouri has fired Melissa Click—finally. president Vladimir Putin has taken control of the agenda by The professor of communications in the school’s prestigious rescuing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and in return journalism school earned national attention, ironically, for obtaining new and better bases in the country. He can now clamping down on student journalis ts trying to record protests afford to be magnanimous, while also continuing sporadically at the university in November. Click was caught on camera re - to bomb the Islamists. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Er do - quest ing that protesters employ “muscle” against their peer, gan works to extend hostilities and overthrow Assad, but lacks and she pushed a reporter herself. Academia has its perks, the means and is further distracted by the migration crisis in the though: For criminally assaulting a student, Click received a neighborhood. An international diplomatic meeting is on the few hours of community service—not to mention the full- horizon, with the purpose of extending the cessation of hostil- throated support of 115 colleagues, who signed a letter on her ities. President Obama has already signposte d its likely failure, behalf. Whe ther the administration suddenly grew a spine or is saying, “There’s no alternative to a managed transition away operating out of self-interest—applications and donations to from Assad.” Who is to do this managing and transitioning the school have plummeted—is unclear, but we’ll soon find must be a White House secret. Secretary of State John Kerry :: : :: :: : :: :

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whistles even louder in the wind: “The potential is there that oranges in plastic containers. An environment-minded shopper Syria will be utterly destroyed.” But it is already, and so utterly sent out a photograph of one with a sarcastic tweet (“if only that it will not be restored for many years, if ever. nature would find a way to cover these oranges”); the arugula- is-political crowd erupted in predictable fury; and the company n The Dutch have discovered a cure for autism: murder. Dutch instantly caved, vowing never to violate Mother Nature so bru- law first was changed to accommodate “physician-assisted tally again. Never mind that Whole Foods composts its orange suicide”—i.e., medical euthanasia—for patients with severe peels, while an orange peeled in someone’s office is likely to conditions some years ago, and, as it turns out, some slopes are become solid waste; never mind that Whole Foods, like most slippery: The Dutch soon decided that those suffering from stores, routinely sells other fruits in plastic containers; and psychiatric problems could be put down like unwanted pets, never mind that some people genuinely prize the convenience too, and now are eliminating those who have no diagnosed of naked oranges, or may not even be physically able to peel medical condition whatsoever save autism. Dutch law requires them. The forces of virtue have won another battle, and Whole that patients seeking to be put to death do so after sober and Foods oranges will stay forever green. careful consideration—a condition that people suffering seri- ous mental problems cannot reasonably be said to have met. n After 18 NFL seasons, Denver Now unhappy people from abroad are traveling to the Nether- Broncos quarterback Peyton lands to be killed. Canada is on the same decline, its supreme Manning is hanging it up. Fresh court having “discovered” a , as our own so often off his second Super Bowl does, this time to physician-inflicted death. When a mentally championship (he won with the ill person says that he wants to die, the proper response is treat- Indianapolis Colts in 2006–07), ment, not “Does your insurance cover hemlock?” “The Sheriff” finishes as the only quarterback with more than n Chris Rock, the host of this year’s Academy Awards broadcast, 200 wins, a five-time NFL MVP, faced a nearly impossible task: Don’t ignore the dearth of black and the league’s all-time leader nominees, and the resulting boycott, but don’t focus on it exclu- in passing yards (71,940) and sively; be edgy but don’t alienate whites, blacks, or anyone else; touchdown passes (539). Man - be political in a safe, NPR-ish way; and, of course, be funny in ning’s career, marred by injury the bargain. He almost succeeded. The only real false note, which and disappointment at the turn of seemed tacked on as a nod to #BlackLivesMatter, was: “This the decade, culminated in a final year, in the In Memoriam package, it’s just going to be black peo- ride to the top—this time as his ple that were shot by the cops on their way to the movies.” As it team’s wily veteran and sup- happened, the day before Rock hosted the Oscars, Woodbridge, porting second banana to the Va., police officer Ashley Guindon was shot dead on her first day Broncos’ championship-caliber on the force, ambushed while responding to a domestic dispute. defense. He will be remembered This is the reality that police officers face every day, and one that as the consummate professional, the dominant rhetoric of our era obscures. for his iconic “Omaha!” audible calls, and for his epic, 15-year- long rivalry with Tom Brady’s Patriots. “I’ve fought a good n Melissa Harris-Perry and MSNBC, the network that hosted fight. I’ve finished my football race, and after 18 years, it’s her weekend race-talk show, parted ways with a vengeance in time,” Manning said as he retired. “God bless all of you, and February. Harris-Perry became enraged after she was preempted God bless football.” multiple times for election coverage. She penned and made public an e-mail to her staff declaring that she refused to be a n They called it “the gaze,” the look of adoration that Nancy “token, mammy, or little brown bobble head,” that she had Reagan invariably cast on Ronald when they were together in been “silenced,” and that her show had been effectively can- public. She cast it because she felt it. Her 52-year marriage was celed. MSNBC executives responded that it had not been, but devoted to her charismatic husband, and to smoothing, however that her public tantrum ensured that it would be. Perry, who is possible, his passage from Hollywood to the White House. Ron - also a professor at Wake Forest University, declared that her ald Reagan was not the easiest person in the world to live with: treatment had been “evil” and “cruel” and had “strong racial genial, humorous, curious, he was also private to the point of in - implications.” (One of Perry’s more notable contriboutions t accessibility. Nancy took his measure, and took him to her heart. discussions of race in America was a 2013 segment in which Occasionally she became a target for his enemies. Liberals she and her guests mocked Mitt Romney for having an adopted harped on her taste, as first lady, for fine clothes and fine things, black grandchild.) The show had “deserved a proper burial,” although after the studied poor-mouthing of the Carter years, the Harris-Perry complained to in a post- White House badly need an injection of glamour. And journalists mortem interview. We’d say it got one. jeered when it came out that she consulted an astrologer about scheduling presidential trips. Her husband had been shot two n Whole Foods Market is an upscale grocery chain scrupulous months after his first inauguration; she would leave nothing to about ensuring that the goods it offers are organic, sustainably chance. But America’s judgment of her, as of him, became in grown, locally sourced, and otherwise unexceptionable to its time universally positive. “We were fortunate,” said Barack Oba - Prius-driving customers, who can be quite exacting. The latest ma, “to benefit from her proud example and her warm and gen- BEN LIEBENBERG VIAcontroversy AP occurred when the company began selling peeled erous advice.” Dead at 94. R.I.P.

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n In contrast to the conditions in today’s mayfly-like software with a plurality of delegates did not win the nomination at industry, after Ray Tomlinson invented our modern system of the end of it. email in 1971, it was little used except by scientists for two The best way to defeat Donald Trump is for someone to decades. Then it progressed from must-have to taken-for- beat him outright and earn a majority of delegates. Especially after his wins in Mississippi and Michigan, that seems unlikely. If Trump is definitely going to be held below 1,237, it probably means John Kasich winning Ohio or Marco Rubio winning Florida or both, in which case the field will stay frac- tured for the duration. Even if he falls short of the magic number, Trump will probably enter the convention with a delegate lead and the largest share of the popular vote. That should not cow any- one. The role of the convention is to secure for the party a nominee whom most of the delegates can support. Trump’s failure to arrive with a majority of delegates would reflect the lack of a consensus for his nomination. The delegates will be granted to passé for anyone under 30, raised on texts and fulfilling their function if they try to find a candidate most of clouds and social media. (Now we can wait for 2030s hipsters them can support. to revive it.) Tomlinson is sometimes referred to as the inven- Provided a deal is not struck prior to the first vote, delegates tor of the @ sign, which is an exaggeration; but that sinuous would be free to negotiate toward that end following that vote symbol, chosen because it wasn’t being used anywhere else, (and a majority of delegates would work its will by means of turned out to be very powerful, allowing not just users sharing voting on the rules governing the convention). What those time on the same computer to exchange messages, but users of negotiations would look like is anyone’s guess. any two computers connected to ARPANET (the Defense Trump’s backers are sure to cry foul if he does not receive Department’s research-sharing network that developed into the the nomination, and there are, of course, prudential concerns Internet). Tomlinson once said that he preferred spelling “email” about whether refraining from handing the nomination to the without the hyphen, and while that is the all-but-universal style plurality choice will alienate his supporters. But that result today, NR has continued its mission of standing athwart by would not mean that the nomination had been stolen—merely hyphenating the word—except in this obituary, where we omit that Trump had failed to secure it under the rules. It is certainly the hyphen as a typographical tribute to Raym ond Tomlinson, true that some Trump supporters are deeply committed to him, the inventor of email, dead @ 74. R.I.P. but not all are. Surely, many are likely to cast their ballots for a non-Trump Republican to avoid ceding the White House to n One day in 1937, Delmer Berg, then 21, was on his way to the Democrats. work as a dishwasher in a Los Angeles hotel when he spotted a For now, this is but speculation. If Trump rolls through the billboard and so found his place in the age of dictators. Having winner-take-all states, talk of a contested convention will all enlisted in the Young Communist League, he was one of the be academic, and the real thing will be dramatic for another 3,000 or so Americans who volunteered to join the Abraham reason: its spectacle of a badly fractured party hitching its for- Lincoln Brigade and fight for the Republic—that is to say, the tunes to a badly flawed nominee who could set the conserva- Left—in the Spanish Civil War. In reality Stalin’s useful idiots, tive cause back decades. they turned the story of the Brigade into a legend of heroic anti- fascism and idealism. “I didn’t know a damn thing politically, we were just kids,” he was to sum up. In action in some of the major battles, he was wounded and sent home when an Italian bomber hit the building he had been in. The wound persisted for the rest of his life, and so did the mindset: He joined the Communist Party in 1943 and always remained proud to call himself “an unreconstructed Communist.” The last known survivor of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and truly legendary in this respect, he has died aged 100 in his native California. R.I.P.

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OR the first time in four decades, Republicans face the real possibility of a contested convention. If this COM . F came to pass, it would be an unusual circumstance, but the process of selecting a candidate at the convention THEVERGE would be a completely legitimate one, even if the candidate

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voters tell pollsters that they have an unfavorable view of Trump: another measure suggesting he is significantly less popular than the other Republi - cans. If Trump is attracting working- class white voters, in other words, apparently he is also repelling more voters of other kinds. Record levels of voter participation in the Republican contests appear to have im pressed some of Trump’s fans as evidence of voter enthusiasm for him. Review ing primary turnout in recent elections, Sean Trende of Real - ClearPolitics concludes that it tends to correlate with close contests among several candidates. It doesn’t correlate with a strong performance in the fall: Sometimes low-turnout primaries yield a winning presidential candidate, and sometimes high-turnout ones yield a losing one. The polling tells us more about Trump’s potential strength than turnout does. And Trump has reached this level of unpopularity while enjoying an advantage that he would lack in the fall as the Republican nominee. Until quite recently, he has not been subjected to many attack ads: The other candidates have mostly Politics andNever principle alike provideTrump reasons to oppose him gone after one another on the air. In the absence of such ads, most voters have, BY RAMESH PONNURU surveys have also shown, been unaware of such controversies as the accusations of fraud against Trump “University.” ONALD TRUMP’s defenders doing. They’re trying to get Trump out If Trump were the nominee, the have taken to arguing that his of the race, because they’re not in Democ rats would spend tens of mil- D critics are endangering the charge of it. lions of dollars making sure that every- Republican party. “I’m used one knew about this story, and others. to being the moral scold,” Bill Bennett Bennett’s comment blurs the distinc- And Trump is, again, already unpopular told , “but Trump is tion between being on the way to win- before such an ad campaign. winning fair and square, so why should ning the nomination and actually Many conservatives who oppose the nomination be grabbed from him? having won it. But the rest of what he’s Trump have felt it morally imperative to We’ve been trying to get white working- saying, and what Limbaugh is saying, declare that they will never vote for him, class people into the party for a long amounts to an argument about elec- even if he wins the Republican nomina- time. Now they’re here in huge numbers tability. The claim is that Trump is tion. They will vote instead for Hillary because of Trump and we’re going to bringing many new people into the Clinton, or for a third-party candidate, alienate them? I don’t get it. Too many Republican party, and that rejecting or a write-in candidate, or no one at all. people are on their high horse.” him will drive those people away and In one respect, those declarations have , on Sunday, thus endanger the Republicans’ ability played into Trump’s hands. They put the made a similar point: to win the election (and maybe even focus on the anti-Trump Repub licans’ future elections). willingness, under the hypothetical con- For the longest time, the Republican It is a very bold argument, consider- dition of a Trump nomination, to take an party has told us that they can’t win with ing that it is made on behalf of the action that would help Clinton win the just Republican votes. . . . Donald Trump has put together a coalition. Republican candidate who polls worst presidency. But it’s Trump’s supporters Whether he knows it or not, whether he against Hillary Clinton. Trump has who are taking actions, real ones in the intended to or not, he’s put together a consistently trailed Clinton in poll here and now, that make Clinton’s elec- coalition that’s exactly what the Re - averages, while , Marco tion more likely. publican party says that it needs to Rubio, and John Kasich have all come If Trump wins the nomination, the

win, and yet look [at] what they’re out ahead of her. About three-fifths of Democrats will likely start running ROMAN GENN

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their ads early in an attempt to put the they can to keep him from winning a plu- race away months before November. If rality of delegates, especially by persuad- Clinton has a durable advantage in the ing some of his supporters to leave him. polls for much of the year, Republican Failing that, they should try to keep Trump’s Tent turnout will be depressed. And it will be him from converting that plurality into depressed even if Mitt Romney or Erick a majority at the Republican conven- EvangelicalsRevival are supporting the mogul, Erickson or any number of other anti- tion. Fighting him at the convention Trump conservatives announce that in would run the risk of alienating many but far from monolithically the end they have decided to hold their of his supporters, probably to an even noses and vote for him. greater extent than fighting him in the BY DAVID FRENCH Trump has said that in the general primaries does. But it would be a risk election he would solicit donations, worth taking. The alternative, giving O enter the world of conserva- which he would need to counter the him the nomination, would run two tive Evangelical pastors and Democratic ads. The less competitive he risks of its own. A defeat pulling down T leaders is to enter the world of looks, though, the less likely he will be other Republicans would be the most the shell-shocked. It is the to get those funds. Maybe it won’t be a likely outcome; the less likely but still land of the thousand-yard stare. In one Goldwater- or McGovern-style wipeout: very undesirable one would be the elec- election cycle—indeed in two brutal America may be too polarized for that. tion of a man who, among other things, weeks—it appeared as if a substantial segment of Evangelical Christianity had decisively rejected the cultural work of an entire generation. Donald Trump If fighting Trump at the convention swept the Deep South, including many of fails, then conservative opponents of America’s most religious states—and Evangelicals led the way. him will have to consider mounting a The American population with one of the lowest divorce rates—churchgoing third-party campaign for president. Christians—appeared to endorse a twice- divorced philanderer who openly bragged But Republicans could lose badly casually promises to order troops to about his serial adulteries. America’s enough to lose races for many other commit war crimes. most pro-life citizens gave a plurality of offices too. If fighting Trump at the convention their votes to a man who loudly declares Senate majority leader Mitch Mc - also fails, then conservative opponents that —’s Connell has reportedly said that if of him will have to consider mounting a largest abortion provider—does “wonder- Trump were the nominee, his col- third-party campaign for president. ful” things for women. leagues would “drop him like a hot This would be a more drastic option Evangelical churches have been work- rock” as they campaigned for their own than a convention fight: It would do ing hard on racial reconciliation, and seats—a prospective strategy that even more to increase the likelihood their embrace of adoption means that assumes that Trump would be as weak that Clinton would win, and it might even the most historically white congre- in a general election as he appears to sunder the Republican party for good. gations feature many racially blended be. Senate Republicans might help Trump supporters would feel that they families. Yet Evangelical voters pulled themselves a little by distancing them- had had a chance to win but had been the lever for a man who has flip-flopped selves from a faltering Trump. But they stabbed in the back. on condemning the Ku Klux Klan, re - are defending seats in many swing Then again, they might feel that way tweets white supremacists, and attracts a states and mildly Democratic states: even in the absence of a third-party cam- flock of vicious online racists as some of Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, paign, if enough Republican officials his most loyal and vocal supporters. Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. A big refused to support their party’s nominee. Moreover, a plurality chose Trump Republican loss in the presidential elec- And a third-party conservative campaign over two men—Ted Cruz and Marco tion would surely cost them the Senate. could help Republican candidates for Rubio—who are not only thoughtful It is even possible that Re publicans on the House, Senate, and other offices, by Christians themselves but have fought the ballot in future years will suffer giving anti-Trump Republicans a reason for life and religious liberty throughout because of a Trump nomination: It to show up to vote. their political careers. And they’ve could cause many voters to think less of In the end, though, the most important spent years cultivating contacts in the the Republican party even after this reason to back a conservative third-party Christian community. Is the Evangelical election is over. run if Trump gets the nomination is not community cracking up? Is it—as Five- The electability argument for Trump, to affect the outcome of the November ThirtyEight’s asserts—re - even if it were a strong one, would not elections. It’s to demonstrate that con- fusing to vote its faith? overcome the man’s manifest unfitness servatism stands for something better The reality is more complex. It turns for the presidency. But it is not strong at than Trump. Which is also a reason to out that millions of “Evangelical” vot- all. His opponents therefore have good strive to keep him from getting the nom- ers aren’t Evangelical at all, and some moral and political reasons to do what ination in the first place. Evangelicals don’t vote as “Evangelical

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Liberty University students sing and pray as they wait for Donald Trump to speak.

voters.” Meanwhile, those who do are in For example, in 2007, while 38 percent Yet it’s hardly correct or sufficient to the middle of a stylistic and cultural clash of Americans self-identified as Evan- say that Trump’s Evangelical support- that until recently prevented the non- gelical, only 8 percent expressed a be - ers aren’t truly Evangelical. He does Trump majority from uniting behind lief—among other things—that Satan draw a significant amount of support either Rubio or Cruz. exists, that salvation is gained through from orthodox, churchgoing Christians. Caucus entrance polls and primary grace, not works, that Jesus lived a sinless But the explanation is rather simple: exit polls are blunt instruments, largely life, and that the Bible is accurate in all Many Evangelical voters don’t see them- incapable of measuring voters’ actual its teachings. In other words, 84 million selves as “Evangelical voters” in a politi- beliefs and conduct. When asked by a Americans self-report as Evangelicals, cal sense. They are not disproportionately pollster whether they identify as Evan - but only 18 million pass through Barna’s concerned with traditional Evangelical gelical, many voters simply interpret theological filter. issues such as life, religious liberty, reli- the question as asking whether they’re And while exit pollsters aren’t ask- gious persecution, or the fate of . some form of conservative, believing ing self-identified Evangelicals to Instead, they’re simply voters who hap- Christian. The exit-poll questions don’t take a theological test, there is one pen to be Evangelical, and as with many measure church attendance, and they measure that helps filter out the casual voters, their primary concerns are immi- certainly don’t delve into the nuances from the more committed believer: gration and the economy. of Christian theology. Thus, in states church attendance. Reuters has found Nor are Evangelicals immune from with large numbers of conservative that, throughout the South, Trump fares Republican anger at the political class Christians, such as South Carolina, exit worse among those who attend church or frustration with oppressive political polls record astounding percentages of more frequently. correctness. Many Christians are espe- “Evangelical” participation. In 2016, This reality may help account for the cially frustrated with political correct- for example, almost three-quarters of rampant incredulity among Evangelical ness. There are indications that some Republican-primary voters reported activists. Again and again, one hears Evangelicals are voting for Trump with that they were Evangelical. from an Evangelical that he “has never eyes wide open—under no illusion that But this number is almost certainly met” a Trump supporter at church. he shares their values—because they inflated—and dramatically. The Barna Indeed, I attend an Evangelical church want to see a border wall, or to “burn Group is one of the nation’s premier in the heart of Trump country. Tennessee down” the GOP establishment, or to defy research organizations dedicated to went for Trump in a landslide: 39 per- a social-justice Left that takes every examining faith and culture, and it has cent to 25 percent for Cruz and 21 per- opportunity to deride or suppress conser- consistently found dramatic dispari- cent for Rubio. My home county went vative values. In other words, Christians ties between the number of people for Trump by a margin of 40 percent to can be populists, too. who identify as Evangelical and the 30 percent for Cruz and 17 percent for This minority of non-churchgoing STEVE HELBER / number of people who actually be - Rubio. Yet I have never had a conversa- Christians and angry populists might be lieve the traditional elements of Evan- tion with a single person at my church expected to lose to a united majority of AP PHOTO gelical theology. who professed support for Trump. committed activists, churchgoers, and

2 1 3col_QXP-1127940387.qxp 3/8/2016 11:56 PM Page 22

constitutional conservatives. Yet Evan - The result isn’t just disagreement but, gelicals are every bit as divided as the often, tension—a tension that Donald broader Republican electorate. Cruz and Trump has been able to exploit. And that Rubio have split the Evangelical majority, tension has been compounded by the Beyond and they appeal to different sectors of same kinds of disbelief and denial about that movement, revealing profound cul- Trump’s rise that have plagued the Re - OnThe immigration Wall from Mexico, tural and tactical differences within it. publican political class. Cruz’s and Rubio’s At the risk of oversimplifying, we Evangelical supporters, too, nursed their Trump is not entirely wrong could say that Cruz attracts the old- grievances in the naïve belief that their school-style Christian activists—those candidate would be the one to capitalize BY REIHAN SALAM who’ve been fighting the good fight, on Trump’s inevitable fall. sometimes for decades—along with those The consequences have been enor- EXICO has been at the heart who often share their style and dedica- mously damaging. Evangelicals have of Donald J. Trump’s presi- tion to principle over more ephemeral long struggled against charges of M dential campaign from the qualities such as electability or charisma. hypocrisy—and southern Evangelicals, very start. When Trump first In December, the Family Research especially, have struggled to shed the announced that he would be seeking the Council’s Tony Perkins led dozens of burden of slavery and Jim Crow. Yet Republican presidential nomination, in Evangelical activists in an effort to unite now the headline is that Evangelicals June of last year, he warned that the behind a single candidate (a similar effort helped propel a vulgar demagogue to the Mexican government was “laughing at in 2012 yielded an endorsement of Rick top of the Republican field, and that us, at our stupidity.” Though Mexico’s GDP per capita is roughly one third of that of the United States when adjusted Evangelicals are every bit as for purchasing power, Trump insisted that Mexico was “beating us economi- divided as the broader cally.” One of his more provocative Republican electorate. claims was that Mex i co was, in effect, using the U.S. as a “dumping ground,” Santorum). After months of an agonizing Evangelicals are overlooking, ignoring, sending not its best and brightest across and sometimes contentious process, they or perhaps even enjoying his obscene per- the border, but ra ther its drug dealers coalesced around Cruz, securing for him sonal insults, his flirtation with racists, and its rapists. endorsements from many of Evangelical and his erratic, unlawful, and brutal pol- Trump’s anti-Mexican remarks have Christianity’s biggest names. icy proposals. not exactly been warmly embraced across At the same time, however, World This is a double failure. It represents the political spectrum. Liberals maintain Magazine—an influential, Christian news a failure of leadership—of the activists that Trump’s Mexico-bashing is designed journal—was conducting a monthly who scoffed at Trump’s rise, pursued to appeal to a dangerous ethnic chauvin- survey of 103 Evangelical “leaders and their own agendas, and proved that they ism that has hitherto lain dormant. Many influencers” (I should disclose that I didn’t understand the complexities and conservatives who fa vor more-vigorous participated in the poll), and Rubio was divisions within their own movement. border enforcement have also objected dominant, winning the poll over Cruz And it also represents an individual fail- to Trump’s language, on the grounds every month for seven months straight. I ure on the part of the hundreds of thou- that it is needlessly inflammatory. Mitt know many of the participants, and they sands of Evangelicals who’ve cast their Romney was just as committed to com- appreciated not only Rubio’s obvious votes for a man who flaunts his reli- bating illegal immigration as Trump, faith but also his ability to speak win- gious ignorance and glories in his pub- and he paid a political price for it. Yet somely and hopefully, even when engag- lic sinfulness. no serious person could accuse Romney ing skeptics and critics. But all is not lost. Romans 8:28 says, of bigotry, since his objections to illegal Cruz’s Evangelical supporters tend to “And we know that in all things God immigration were so clearly rooted in want to rally the faithful. Rubio’s Evan - works for the good of those who love respect for the . The same gelical supporters want to appeal beyond him.” Perhaps the good in this colossal cannot be said of Trump. the faithful. Cruz’s supporters are more error is a necessary rediscovery of In the months since his announcement, doctrinaire constitutional conservatives. humility and a necessary chastening. Trump has been notably inconsistent in Rubio’s supporters are conservative but Evangelicals are not as good or wise as his stance on immigration, with some often less concerned with down-the-line perhaps we thought we were. In other anti-immigration advocates, including conformity and often supportive of words, there is great virtue in seeing Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, suggesting amnesty. Cruz’s supporters are proud that ourselves as we truly are—warts and all. that he favors a so-called “touchback” he defies Washington and has earned the But now it’s time to shake off the shell amnesty, in which the vast majority of enmity of his colleagues. Rubio’s sup- shock, repent of foolishness and pride, illegal immigrants would be granted porters are alarmed by this penchant for and get to work. Evangelical leaders legal status, provided that they first make conflict and prefer a candidate with a have a movement to educate and unite, a brief return to their native countries. reputation for peacemaking who can a nation to protect, and a dime-store But Trump has never wavered in calling reach across the aisle. Caesar to stop. for a border wall designed to deter future

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illegal immigration, a wall that he would One straightforward step the federal though, and the gap remains big enough somehow compel the Mexican govern- government could take would be to aid to tempt Mexican workers northwards. ment to finance. Of all the powerful state-level efforts to curb illegal immi- Yet as Mexico’s standard of living has applause lines in a presidential cam- gration. In February, Bob Davis of the improved, its people are less eager to paign that’s been full of them, this is reported that the leave their families and neighborhoods one he has returned to time and again. pas sage of a series of immigration- behind. The problem we face is that Regardless of what one thinks of enforcement measures in Arizona had while Mexicans are better-off on aver- Trump’s qualifications to be president— contributed to a steep 40 percent decline age, Mexico remains a highly unequal my own view is that he isn’t qualified to in that state’s unauthorized- immigrant society. Until life improves for the poor- serve as America’s dogcatcher—there is population between 2007 and 2012. est Mexicans, migration will remain at no question that his fixation on Mexico There were other factors, to be sure, attractive option. has touched a nerve. The reason is that most importantly the housing bust and When conservatives rail against ille- Trump has the germ of a point. Mexico the subsequent recession. But the out- gal immigration from Mexico, they may not be “beating us economically,” flow of illegal immigrants from Ari zo na should also rail against the Mexican but it really is true that the U.S. has served proved far greater than that from other government for failing to provide for as a kind of economic escape valve for states that were similarly hard hit—in its own people. Illegal immigrants are Mexico, in ways that have ill served not part, it seems, because Arizona endeav- at fault for violating U.S. immigration just the U.S. but also, in the long run, ored to make it more difficult for em - laws, but so are their home govern- Mexico itself. Trump’s Mexico-bashing ployers to hire illegal immigrants. Other ments that have failed to create safe not with stand ing, there is potentially a states, however, have moved in the and prosperous environments in which great deal of common ground between opposite direction by extending more they can raise their children. To lose Americans on the political right who legal protections to illegal immigrants, sight of that is a mistake. The good want to put an end to illegal immigration and the Obama administration has badly news is that Mexico has made strides in and Mexicans on the political left who undermined state-level immigration- reducing extreme poverty, thanks in want to make their country more egali- enforcement efforts by issuing execu- part to the increased social spending that tarian and inclusive. tive orders that shield roughly half of accompanied Mexico’s political democ- From 2009 to 2014, the net flow of the illegal immigrants currently resid- ratization. Two major anti-poverty pro- migration from Mexico to the U.S. was ing in the U.S. from deportation. grams in particular, Pro gre sa and negative, according to the Pew Re search If more-vigorous immigration enforce- Oportunidades, have greatly increased Center. While 870,000 Mexican nation- ment can do so much to curb illegal household incomes among Mex i co’s als settled in the U.S., 1 million of them immigration, why should Amer icans, poorest families. But social spending is returned to Mexico, a figure that includes least of all American con ser va tives, care not enough. Further reductions in poverty those who returned voluntarily as well as about economic conditions in Mexico? will depend on job creation for Mexi - 140,000 who were deported. Had there The reason is that Mexico’s poverty is the cans with modest skills. One of the been no deportations, the net flow would ultimate source of the migration chal- ironies of Donald Trump’s embrace of have been slightly positive, and of course lenge. Eco nom ic development is the only is that if our goal is to the threat of removal may have led at reliable way to reduce migrant outflows. reduce migration from Mex i co, we least some Mexican nationals to “self- Once a country’s income per capita pass- ought to welcome the offshoring of deport.” By way of comparison, between es $8,000 or so, its residents become far industries that depend heavily on less- 1995 and 2000, when labor-market con- less inclined to leave the country as their skilled immigrant labor. Why fight to ditions for less-skilled workers in the incomes rise. Before this threshold is keep low-wage jobs in meatpacking, U.S. were far stronger and the Mexican reached, rising income can actually spur general assembly, and furniture manu- economy was in worse shape, 2.94 mil- more migration, presumably because it facturing in the U.S. if these jobs tend lion Mex i can nationals settled in the gives truly impoverished people the to be held by less-skilled immigrants, U.S., while only 670,000 returned home. means to pack up and leave. who need subsidies from U.S. taxpayers Some observers claim that because If poor Mexicans had better pros - to lead decent lives? net migration from Mexico is now neg- pects for advancement at home, far In a similar vein, the U.S. ought to ative, there is no longer any need for few er of them would choose to settle in consider encouraging U.S. retirees to concern. This is nonsense. There are the United States. Indeed, the most im - settle in Mexico. As the U.S. population still roughly 5.6 million Mex i can portant reason migration from Mexico ages, demand for home health aides and immigrants illegally in the U.S., and to to the United States has slowed in recent other low-wage service workers who meaningfully reduce the size of this years is not more-aggressive border can provide for the elderly is increasing, population, we’d need far more Mexi - enforcement. Rather, it is the fact that and this rising demand is often cited by cans to return to their native country, Mexico’s GDP per capita (adjusted for advocates of higher immigration levels. and far fewer to enter the U.S., every purchasing-power parity) has reached But instead of admitting more less- year. Had the Obama administration $18,500, which places it in roughly the skilled immigrants, the U.S. could allow been more aggressive about immigra- same ballpark as moderately well-off U.S. retirees to make use of Medicare in tion enforcement, the number of illegal countries such as Russia, Ma lay sia, and Mexico, a simple measure that would immigrants in the U.S. would almost Turkey. This is still substantially lower address a number of problems at once: It certainly be considerably smaller. than U.S. per capita income ($56,300), would generate employment opportuni-

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ties for less-skilled workers in Mexico; foreign law got its start on the Supreme it would reduce the demand for less- Court. In cases ranging from the death skilled immigrant workers in the U.S.; penalty to gay rights, several justices have and it might even reduce Medicare Sovereignty resorted to foreign law as a tool to inter- expenditures, since the cost of offering pret the Constitution. In Atkins v. Virginia, benefits would be substantially lower in Assaulted for example, the Court required states to Mexico than in the U.S. If this seems Will the Constitution be cast aside in consider the intelligence level of defen- unrealistic, consider that U.S. retirees favor of international law? dants before imposing capital punish- have already settled in regions such as ment. “Within the world community,” the Jalisco, Guanajuato, Baja Sur, and the BY JOHN R. BOLTON & majority wrote, “the imposition of the Mexican Caribbean in large numbers. J O H N Y O O death penalty for crimes committed by More old er Americans would join them mentally retarded offenders is over- in seeking a lower cost of living in whelmingly disapproved.” Never mind Mexico if their Medicare benefits trav- ROM his first days on the Supreme that most countries in the world also don’t eled with them. Court in 1986, Justice Antonin impose the death penalty. In Lawrence v. Whether we like it or not, the fates of F Scalia insisted that judges read Texas, the majority struck down state the U.S. and Mexico are intertwined, the Constitution as it was under- laws banning homosexual conduct by and securing Mexico’s cooperation in stood when drafted and ratified. He also relying, in part, on recent British legisla- curbing illegal immigration will likely demanded that they resist the temptation tion and decisions of the European Court require giving the Mexican govern- to substitute their own political views for of Human Rights. Liberal opponents of ment something it wants. Keep in mind those of our elected representatives. As the Court’s halting steps in defense of that Mexico is not just a source of the battle over his seat on the Court federalism have sought support from migrants to the U.S.—it also separates begins, these critical insights about the European and other countries’ weaker us from Guatemala ($7,900), Honduras Consti tution and the judicial role should protections for state sovereignty. ($5,000), and El Salvador ($8,300), all occupy the very center of the fight. Justice Scalia criticized this tendency of which are much poorer than Mexico, One crucial issue facing the Supreme with his signature verve and wit. “If there and where migration pressures are still Court has been and will continue to be was any thought absolutely foreign to the building. These coun tries are the biggest American national sovereignty. On this founders of our country, surely it was the new sources of illegal immigration, and question, Scalia was stalwart in rejecting notion that we Americans should be gov- to stem the tide of illegal immigration the idea that foreign law could be used to erned the way Europeans are governed.” from Cen tral America, we must con- interpret the Constitution. Unbeknownst Why, then, would American judges seek vince the Mexican government to stop to most Americans, foreign countries to adopt foreign legal practices? Because turning a blind eye when Central Amer - (most of them European), international it is part of the fundamental struggle i cans pass through its territory en route organizations, and international-law pro- over constitutional interpretation. Once to the U.S. fessors, lawyers, and activists regularly judges believe they should “update” the The Mexican government, for all its appear before the Court and press the jus- Consti tution in line with contemporary weaknesses, is fully capable of halting tices to adopt foreign norms. Justice opinions, they are writing a new consti- Central American migrants. In 2001, for Scalia publicly worried that this phenom- tution, not interpreting the old one. example, President Vicente Fox deployed enon could be “the wave of the future.” Foreign law ultimately increases the the armed forces to prevent migrants from He had good reason for concern. The power of judges—which Scalia consis- passing through the So nor an Desert, out outcome of the 2016 presidential elec- tently opposed—because it gives them a of fear that they might die of thirst in a tion, in which national security will fig- bigger tool kit with which to reach their severe heat wave. Instead of focusing sole- ure prominently, could well decide the desired results. Criticizing the growth of ly on securing America’s southern border, matter for decades. We are not going out judicial activism abroad, Scalia declared, we would do well to secure Mexico’s on a limb to predict that a Hillary Clinton “If you are a living constitutionalist, you cooperation in halting migrants long administration would only accelerate the are almost certainly an international liv- before they reach it. Obama administration’s foreign-policy ing constitutionalist.” Winning over the Mexican govern- mistakes, including its withdrawal of Justice Scalia diagnosed this problem ment by helping it create employment American leadership from world affairs early, but the temptation to cede U.S. sov- opportunities at home might be less emo- and its deference to foreign governments ereignty in favor of foreign and interna- tionally satisfying than trying to bully and international institutions. tional law has spread well beyond the Mexico into doing our bidding, as Donald Before it resonated throughout the courts. The O bama administration has Trump would prefer. But while a bullying Obama administration’s foreign policy, gone to unprecedented lengths in its eager- approach would almost certainly drive the idea of deferring to international and ness to concede U.S. military and political the Mexicans into taking a more adver- leadership to international organizations sarial stance, appealing to Mexico’s self- Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American and international law. interest would have a far greater chance Enterprise Institute and a former U.S. ambassador to Take the U.S.–Iran nuclear agreement. of success. If we really hope to put a stop the United Nations. Mr. Yoo is a law professor at the Rather than seek approval for it as a treaty to illegal immigration, we’d be foolish University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting (which requires approval by two-thirds of not to do so. scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. the Senate) or as a congressional–executive

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agreement (with consent of both houses such as the United States, Israel, and fessor Harold Koh to serve as legal of Congress), President Obama acted India—refused to join. Rather, the Ottawa adviser to the State Department, where unilaterally to make the deal. Obama- convention was the work of international he was a member of Clinton’s inner cir- administration supporters claimed the activists, representing no states, who cle. Koh is the very model of the modern agreement was binding because of a U.N. were eventually awarded the Nobel Peace American lawyer who wants to bring Security Council resolution, and the State Prize for their efforts. Ottawa “spawned a international law, without democratic Department did little to dispel the notion new politics, new partnerships, new ways process, into the U.S. political system. while Congress debated whether to disap- of thinking about the international envi- He clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun, prove the Iran deal. On global warming, ronment. It was the forerunner of a clear worked as a young lawyer in the Reagan the administration seeks to participate in notion of global citizenship,” writes Justice Department, and became a pro- the Paris agreement without going through Lloyd Axworthy, a former Canadian fessor of law at Yale before serving as a the constitutional process for protecting foreign minister and currently presi- political appointee in ’s State our sovereignty required by the treaty dent of the World Feder alist Movement. Department. In his scholarly work, Koh clause. Instead, the administration claims “It challenged conventional notions of has only praise for what he calls “trans - the U.S. must reach pollution targets given sovereignty and set in motion a form of national legal process,” and he has sup- meaning only by international law, but it coalition politics at the global level that ported lawsuits seeking to have courts will no doubt use the Paris agreement to could be used to shift power and politi- enforce international law against the U.S. justify ever more burdensome EPA regu- cal relationships.” government and American corporations, lations on industry. Even some hawks Relying on foreign law threatens even though Congress had never enacted challenging China’s territorial claims in American sovereignty not just by restrict- legislation on the issues involved. the South China Sea hope that the parch- ing American foreign policy. It also would In several articles and speeches, Koh has ment barriers of the Law of the Sea bring about significant changes in domes- defended the work of “transnational norm Treaty, rather than a rejuvenated U.S. tic policy. Some critics of the Second entrepreneurs, governmental norm spon- Navy, will protect our interests. The Amendment—which Scalia, writing for sors, transnational issue networks, and Obama administration would not inter- the Court’s majority, definitively found interpretive communities”—anyone, it vene in Syria, where the death toll now to guarantee an individual right to bear seems, other than an official democrati- measures in the hundreds of thousands, arms in District of Columbia v. Heller— cally elected to represent the people—to without some form of international seek to limit the sale of guns by urging “internalize international legal norms into approval. Similar arguments are made that that America join the Arms Trade Treaty. domestic law.” Koh has described this the United States should limit the use of Critics of the death penalty point to its process as “downloading” international land mines, cyber weapons, drones, or its dwindling use internationally, arguing that law into U.S. law, as if the former were operations in outer space, relying on the this foreign consensus should help estab- higher wisdom and America a sort of prim- promises of international law rather than lish that capital punishment has become itive tablet computer. Koh returned to Yale the U.S. military to guard our security. cruel and unusual. Law School after Clinton left the State International law represents a threat to Justice Scalia correctly saw the use of Department, but in a Clinton presidency, U.S. sovereignty not just because of the foreign law as boosting judicial activism. his star would likely rise even higher in the activist effort to constrain American By giving judges freer rein to read their executive branch or even on the Supreme freedom of action within a straitjacket of policies into the Constitution, looking Court. The contrast could not be sharper international rules. International law abroad helps short-circuit Madisonian between traditional understandings of today is fundamentally different from representative government and the very American sovereignty and Koh’s new traditional international law, which took concept of separation of powers. Interest world of “transnational legal process.” the form of agreements between nations groups lobby international organizations So strong are his views about the binding or at least universal rules that had received in forums that are anything but democ- nature of international law that in 2004 he unanimous consent from all states. For ratic: In most international bodies, each linked Iraq, North Korea, and the United hundreds of years, international law repre - nation, regardless of population, politi- States as “the axis of disobedience.” sented the agreement of states pursuing cal system, or economy, has an equal To protect individual liberty, the Con - their own self-interest, and so states not vote. Transnational advocacy groups stitution’s framers created a political only benefited from it but also had a high then try to impose these global norms system sharply at odds with Europe. likelihood of complying with it. down from the international organiza- They believed American sovereignty Today, however, an elite group of tions upon the United States. How much was precious precisely because it pre- activists, lawyers, and international offi- easier it is to enact gun control, for served our right to govern ourselves cials drives international law. They identify example, when advocacy groups can sim- contrary to the prevailing wisdom. “The their preferred policies first, and then seek ply bypass the states, Congress, and the men who founded our republic did not to pressure states to adopt them. Consider U.S. political process to do so. aspire to emulating Europeans, much the 1996 Ottawa convention banning land If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency less the rest of the world,” Scalia wrote. mines. The apparent success of the treaty, this November, we can only expect more With the passing of Justice Scalia, our which now includes about 80 percent of efforts at evading the Constitution. In a nation not only lost one of its greatest the world’s nations, did not result from the sign of the importance of these ideas to the defenders of American sovereignty, but agreement of nations at war. Indeed, Democratic-party worldview, President also received a clear reminder of what is many nations with the most at stake— Obama appointed Yale Law School pro- at stake this November.

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These were terrible times for Guatemala: civil-war times. One of the founders was JAY NORDLINGER’S kidnapped and murdered, by Communist FreedomA unicorn of a university U in guerrillas. So were other early participants CH I LDR E N Central America in UFM. Evidently, the Communists did not appreciate diversity in education. of M ON S T E R S BY JAY NORDLINGER Today, UFM is flourishing, and true to its founding mission. There are nearly An Inquiry into the Sons Guatemala City 3,000 students, and around 500 teachers and Daughters of Dictators OR years, people have said to me, (most of whom are part-time, and none of “It’s too good to be true. But it is whom have tenure). Many of the teachers F true. It actually exists.” These are alumni of the university. people are classical liberals, or UFM offers bachelor’s degrees, mas- Reagan conservatives, or in that general ter’s degrees, and doctoral degrees. The camp. And the thing they are talking subjects range from architecture to den- about is Francisco Marroquín University, tistry to psychology to law. A recent addi- here in the Guatemalan capital. It is a tion is a film program. But everyone takes classical-liberal university. fundamental courses, a core, in liberal And it is virtually the only one in the economics and philosophy. entire world. A similar ins titution can be Workers on campus may take a collo- found in Montenegro, and it was inspired quium in liberalism, free of charge. I’m by UFM (to use the Guatemalan univer- talking about janitors, gardeners, every- sity’s Spanish initials). But UFM stands one. They don’t have to, because they are pretty much alone. “free to choose” (in the Friedmans’ phrase). UFM’s mission statement, or mission But if they want to know what their sentence, is known by heart on this cam- employer is about, they may. pus, at least by some: “. . . to teach and dis- The place is beautiful—lush. Academic t’s a fascinating question: What’s it like to be the son or daughter of a dictator? seminate the ethical, legal, and economic grove as tropical paradise. UFM is set in a The offspring of a . . . Stalin? Or Mao? principles of a society of free and respon- ravine, and the buildings blend into the IOr a tin-horn dictator from an African hell- sible persons.” (A teacher says to me, hills. I think of a statement by Frank Lloyd hole? Jay Nordlinger’s answers to these and other questions are engaging, witty, insight- “Notice that ‘ethical’ comes first.”) Wright: “A building should be a grace to ful, and make for a hell of a good read. On campus, you see Adam Smith Plaza. its environment, not a disgrace.” Here’s praise from outstanding historians for And the Library. And the Guatemala City has a reputation for Jay and his outstanding book: Friedrich Hayek Auditorium. And, for good crime, and I ask UFM’s secretary-general, : “A magnetic page- measure, the Auditorium. Ricardo Castillo, about the campus: Is it turner that nonetheless is complex and deep. The fascinating and horrific details UFM has not forgotten Milton’s better half: safe? Yes, he says, very. The biggest dan- Nordlinger unearths flow together to pose in the form of a Rose Friedman Terrace. ger is that an avocado will fall from a tree important and disturbing questions about The university was founded in 1971 by and crack a windshield. It happened to a love, loyalty, history, and human nature.” Manuel Ayau and a group of like-minded student recently, and she was quite upset. ANDREW ROBERTS: “This extraordi- partners. They were Guatemalan entrepre- The campus is dotted with art, including nary book makes us all ask of ourselves: What would we do if we realized that our neurs, and they called themselves “rebel a sculpture of Atlas (as in “shrugged”). beloved father was also a blood-stained improvisers.” They were fed up with the There is also a modern number called tyrant? . . . Jay Nordlinger’s exceptional persistent socialism and poverty in their “Infinite Relationships.” It seems to me a investigation into the children of 20 mod- ern dictators grips and convinces.” part of the world. They wanted to create at bunch of coils or tubes. I’m told it repre- least an island of liberalism (for which sents the market. : “Jay Nordlinger is Americans, with our peculiar vocabulary, Where the core courses are given is one of America’s most versatile and pun- gent writers.” can read “conservatism,” or “Reaganism”). the Center—named after They named their university after Fran - the American journalist who wrote the The late : “Few writers are well qualified to write about cisco Marroquín, who lived in the first iconic volume Economics in One Les - the world’s cultures, and none more so half of the 16th century. He was the first son. There is also a room named for than Jay Nordlinger.” bishop of Guatemala, and a pioneer in , the American educator BERNARD LEWIS: “Nordlinger education. He was especially interested in who wrote the iconic essay “I, Pencil.” offers a unique combination of depth the education of colonial girls and Indians. Next to one another, I see rooms named and accuracy of knowledge with clarity He was also interested in and for Hannah Arendt, Lao-Tze, and and elegance of style. It is a pleasure to read sophistication without affectation.” other elements of what would be known as Booker T. Washington. . Booker T. Washington? This especially Inaugurating the university, Ayau gave a warms my heart—for when I was growing ORDER TODAY AT simple, thoughtful, and profound address. up, he was often portrayed as a kind of AMAZON OR AT YOUR At the end, he said, “May God help us and Tom, an embarrassment, in contrast with LOCAL BOOKSTORE show us the road to the truth.” the proud W. E. B. Du Bois.

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tion to the girls in their charge. Most of these girls came from wealthy families. Some of them ran off with the rebels. But Carla did not. Why? For one thing, her father had always impressed on her a respect for life: “Thou shalt not kill.” Also a respect for private property: “Thou shalt not steal.” You never take what’s not yours—even a rub- ber band at school or work. This girl could not join the rebels. She tells her students that they can be victims or achievers—their choice. They may say, “I was born in Guatemala, so how can I be or do anything in the world?” That The campus of Francisco Marroquín University is a mentality that UFM seeks to erase. Carla Hess also leads rope courses and Even the levels of the parking garage At UFM, there are plenty of left-leaning other physical activities up in the hills. are named after worthies: specifically, students, resisting and quarreling with the They teach lessons such as, “What is the members of the School of Salamanca (in reigning ethos, of course. Students are difference between central planning and 16th-century Spain). The idea is that car- exposed to a wide range of thought. They spontaneous order?” In creative ways, stu- driving students will eventually learn are free to explore, think, and argue as dents learn that one is a lot more effective about these people, almost without trying. they will. Most of the time, they gravitate than the other. Throughout campus—in virtually every to classical liberalism—either before they To speak personally: I like a campus corner—there are quotations and slogans. graduate or after. without any intellectual or political slant. This bothers me a little at first, because I UFM has had an influence on Guatemala. But if our universities—thousands and associate the ubiquity of quotations and This influence is seen in the liberalization of thousands of them—are going to be dom- slogans with the Left. But if you’re going the telecommunications industry, for exam- inated by the Left, what’s so bad about one to have quotations and slogans—they ple. In the last presidential election, two classical-liberal university in all the world? might as well be true and salutary. of the three leading candidates mentioned Even ten or 20? The rector, or president, of this univer- Mises! (Including the eventual winner.) I realize I’ve sounded like a cheerleader sity is Gabriel Calzada, an economist from Guy Wyld, the president of the univer- in this article. But readers will forgive me Spain—from the Canary Islands, specifi- sity’s board of trustees, tells me a some- because there’s so much to cheer. cally. I ask him, “How did you become a what touching story. Last year, he got a One of the things I notice at UFM is a liberal? Why are you not a socialist, as so hold of an index of economic freedom strong, strong contrast with the trend of many are?” In fact, I put this question to worldwide. He looked from the middle of things in America. I notice no sense of many of the faculty and administration. the list down, for Guatemala. He couldn’t entitlement. Quite the opposite. I notice Everyone has a story, and it’s interesting. find it—for it was in the top-most quartile. eagerness, curiosity, and gratitude. At Calzada’s is something like this: When While other universities in Guatemala home, we have safe spaces and trigger he was in high school, he liked freedom— and the rest of the region may not like UFM, warnings. These things would be laugh- but he was on the left. He started a trade they have to respect it. UFM has been able here—even incomprehensible. Last union of students. He read the usual: called “the Harvard of Central America.” fall, I did a report from Brown University, Hegel, Marx, Engels—even Bakunin. Not long ago, President Calzada was at a where students had started a secret Face - They didn’t satisfy him. meeting of university officials and associ- book group so that they could discuss When he got to college, he had a right- ated others. One of the university officials things freely. There is no such need at leaning (or liberal-leaning) professor. The lit into him as a tool of Big Business, a UFM. Everything is open and on the table. young man argued with him in class. One defender of privilege, etc. Later, the offi- I meet a student from rural Guatemala day, the professor said, “Mr. Calzada, cial asked to speak to him privately. who won a scholarship here. In previous would you like to know more?” The young “Listen,” he said, “my son is approach- times, he picked beans on a coffee farm to man said, “Yes, please give me more.” ing college age, and there is of course no support his family. A sense of entitlement The professor then invited him to come to other place for him to go but UFM. Do would be utterly foreign to him. his house weekly, for debate. you think you can get him in? Also, how A final thought: When I was growing He gave young Calzada a variety of about a scholarship?” up, I think I was led to believe that the readings: left, right, and center. Calzada One of the most sparkling personalities capitalists, classical liberals, or free- was drawn to the classical liberals. The at UFM is Carla Hess, who, appropriately, marketeers were selfish, materialistic, first book that made a deep impression on leads a program called “Spark.” It seeks to greedy. They preached a gospel of dog- him was by Jean-François Revel: Useless encourage the entrepreneurial spark in eat-dog. In due course, I realized that they Knowledge (also known in English as The human beings. She herself grew up during were among the most caring people on Flight from Truth). Then came Karl the civil war and was taught by Maryknoll earth. They want people to be prosperous,

HARRY DÍAZ Popper, Hayek, others . . . nuns. They preached Communist revolu- free, and well.

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The Father-Führer Chaos in the family, chaos in the state

BY KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON

ICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY is bitter. I think that the words of Curtis Yarvin, a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug) that I can write that in both truth and charity. (I think might in less riled-up times be described as “polite society,” M you might even say that he and I are friends.) the conventional wisdom among people who live in places Dougherty is a conservative of the sort sometimes such as Washington, D.C., and New York City and work in advertised as “paleo” and served as national correspondent for fields such as politics and media. The American Conservative. Like many conservative writers You know: THEM. with those associations, Dougherty spends a great deal of time Donald Trump is the headline, and explaining the benighted lambasting the conservative movement and its organs, from white working class to THEM is the main matter. Sanctimony which he feels, for whatever reason, estranged—an alienation is the literary mode, for Dougherty and for many others doing that carries with it more than a little to suggest that it is some- the same work with less literary facility. what personal. Dougherty invites us to think about Mike, an imaginary In 2013, he announced that he planned to set aside political member of the white working class who is getting by on writing to concentrate on the relatively sane world of profes- Social Security disability fraud in unfashionable Garbutt, sional baseball, saying: “National politics has most of the N.Y. Conservatives, in Dougherty’s view, don’t give a vices of ‘bread and circuses.’ And if that’s the case, pro sports damn about Mike. They care a great deal about Jeffrey, “a is a better circus.” But it is difficult for a politics man to give typical coke-sniffer in Westport, Conn.” Jeffrey pays a lot up politics—look at all the political crap that ESPN viewers of taxes, both directly in the form of the capital-gains tax and Sports Illustrated readers have to endure—and he has and indirectly through the corporate tax, and tax cuts taken it upon himself in this election cycle to serve as Apostle “intersect with his interests at several points.” to the Cathedral, “the Cathedral” being a favorite metaphor Republicans want to encourage private retirement invest- ROMAN GENN of the so-called alt-right for the “distributed conspiracy” (in ments, which might send some business toward Jeffrey’s

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“fund-manager in-law, who works in nearby Darien.” (For ARBUTT is Trump Country, and Dougherty, while those of you unfamiliar with the econogeography of not a wild-eyed Trumpkin, is generally sympathetic Fairfield County, Conn., going from Westport to Darien is to Trump’s critique of current American economic moving up in the world. Next stop: Greenwich.) “If the Gpolicy, namely that international trade and immigration are conservative movement has any advice for Mike, it’s to dispossessing the white working class. There is not, in fact, move out of Garbutt and maybe ‘learn computers,’” very much evidence for those claims: Immigration does put Dougherty writes in the magazine The Week. “Any invest- some downward pressure on wages, but it also puts down- ments he made in himself previously are for naught. People ward pressure on prices. Native-born low-skilled workers’ rooted in their hometowns? That sentimentalism is for money income may have stagnated, but their real income— effete readers of . Join the hyper-mobile what they can buy with the money they earn—has continued world.” The piece is headlined “How Conservative Elites to improve modestly. The main effect of new immigrants’ Disdain Working-Class Republicans,” and I suppose I wage competition is felt in the wages of earlier immigrants. should mention that my own writing on the white working But the effects of immigration overall are tiny compared class’s infatuation with Donald Trump is Exhibit A in with the effects of factors such as health-care expenses. In Dougherty’s case. many lower-end occupations, overall compensation in fact has gone up over the years, but the additional compensa- tion has come largely or entirely in the form of medical EVER mind the petty sneering (as though the conser- benefits. In some cases, the expense of medical benefits vative movement were populated by septuagenari- has gone up so much that total compensation has increased ans who say things like “learn computers”) and the even while money wages have gone down. That’s the worst rhetoricalN need to invent moral debasement (tax cuts are of all possible worlds: It costs more to employ those low- What, really, is the case for staying in Garbutt?

good for the rich people in Connecticut who don’t use skilled American workers, but they don’t feel any richer— cocaine, too) and Dougherty’s ignoring out of existence and if their employers are paying more for the same those capital-driven parts of the economy that are outside of benefits (or paying more for inferior benefits under the so- the Manhattan–Connecticut finance corridor. And never called Affordable Care Act), they aren’t any richer, practi- mind the math, too: It is really quite difficult to design fed- cally speaking. eral tax cuts that benefit people who do not pay much in the On the trade front, American manufacturing continues to way of federal taxes. Set all that aside: What, really, is the expand and thrive—an absolute economic fact that is, per- case for staying in Garbutt? versely, unknown to the great majority of Americans, who There was no Garbutt, N.Y., until 1804, when Zachariah believe precisely the opposite to be the case. Americans have Garbutt and his son John settled there. They built a grist false beliefs about manufacturing for a few reasons: One is mill, and, in the course of digging its foundations, they dis- that while our factories produce much more than in the past, covered a rich vein of gypsum, at that time used as a fertil- they employ fewer people; another is that we tend to produce izer. A gypsum industry sprang up and ran its course. Then capital goods and import consumer goods—you won’t see Garbutt died. “As the years passed away, a change came over much labeled “MADEINTHE USA” at Walmart, but you’ll see the spirit of their dream,” wrote local historian George E. it on everything from the aircraft flown by foreign airlines to Slocum. “Their church was demolished and its timber put the robotics in automobile factories overseas. Another factor, to an ignoble use; their schools were reduced to one, and particularly relevant to the question of manufacturing and that a primary; their hotels were converted into dwelling trade, is that a large (but declining) share of those imported houses; their workshops, one by one, slowly and silently consumer goods comes from China, a country with which sank from sight until there was but little left to the burg except we have a large trade deficit. That isn’t because the Chinese its name.” are clever, but because they are poor: With an average annu- Slocum wrote that in . . . 1908. al income of less than $9,000, the typical Chinese household The emergence of the gypsum-hungry wallboard industry is not well positioned to buy American-made goods, which gave Garbutt a little bump at the beginning of the 20th cen- are generally expensive. (China is a large consumer of U.S. tury, but it wasn’t enough. The U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t agricultural products, especially soybeans.) Add to that even keep data on Garbutt. To invoke Burkean conservatism poorly informed and sentimental ideas about what those old in the service of preserving a community that was exnihi- Rust Belt factory jobs actually paid—you can have a 1957 lated into existence around a single commodity and lasted standard of living, if you really want it, quite cheap—and barely a century is the indulgence of absurd sentimentality. you get a holistic critique of U.S. economic policy that is Yes, young men of Garbutt—get off your asses and go find wholly bunk. a job: You’re a four-hour bus ride away from the gas fields Which isn’t to say that the Mikes of Doughe rty’s world have of Pennsylvania. it good—they don’t. But they aren’t victims of the wily Stonehenge didn’t work out, either: Good luck. Chinese, scheming to make them poor: In the story of the white

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working class’s descent into dysfunction, they are the victims the Left is inclined toward the maternal and the nurturing. and the villains both. (Right-wing critics of free trade and free enterprise in the The Washington Post’s “Wonkbook” newsletter compared English-speaking world often speak of “nurturing” economic the counties Trump won in the so-called Super Tuesday pri- policies, because they do not wish to write the word “social- maries with the demographic data and found trends that will ism.”) But it is an idea that fits at best uneasily with the aspira- surprise no one who has been paying attention (and certainly tions of American conservatism. no one, I hope, who has been reading this magazine). The life One of the worst errors in public life is the common one of expectancies among non-college-educated white Americans mistaking the metaphor for the thing itself. In reality—and have been plummeting in an almost unprecedented fashion, a reality is not optional—the president isn’t the national dad trend not seen on such a large scale since the collapse of the (Governor John Kasich’s insistence notwithstanding), and gov- and the social anarchy that prevailed in Russia ernment is neither paternal nor maternal. The nation isn’t your afterward. Trump counties had proportionally fewer people family. Your family is your family. with college degrees. Trump counties had fewer people work- The metaphor points both ways: Nationalism may speak to ing. And the white people in Trump counties were likely to die a longing for lost national greatness, but in our own time, it younger. T he causes of death were “increased rates of disease speaks at least as strongly to the longing after—the great and ill health, increased drug overdose and abuse, and sui- howling lamentation for—the ideal family that never was lost, cide,” the Post’s Wonkblog website reported. because it never was formed. The Mikes of the world may be This is horrifyingly consistent with other findings. struggling to make it in the global economy, but what they The manufacturing numbers—and the entire gloriously com- really are shut out of is the traditional family. The current plex tale of globalization—go in fits and starts: a little improve- social regime of illegitimacy, serial monogamy, abortion, and ment here, a little improvement there, and a radically better liberal divorce has rendered traditional families optional, at world in raw material terms (and let’s not sniff at those) every best—the great majority of divorces are initiated by wives, couple of decades. Go back and read the novels of the 1980s or not by husbands—and the has at least in part watch The Brady Bunch and ask yourself why well-to-do subur- supplanted the Mikes in their role as providers, assuming that ban families living in large, comfortable homes and holding they have the wherewithal to fill that role in the first place. down prestigious jobs were worried about the price of butter and Traditional avenues for achieving respect, status, and perma- meat, and then ask yourself when was the last time you heard nence are lost to them. someone complain that he couldn’t afford a stick of butter. That Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart London has done more to put change happened a little at a time, here and there. homosexual camp in the service of right-wing authoritarianism The family-life numbers, on the other hand, came down on us than any man has since the fellows at Hugo Boss sewed all like a meteor. Before the war, divorce had been such an alien those nifty SS uniforms. He refers to Trump—this will not sur- phenomenon that it animated such shaggy-dog stories as The prise you—as “Daddy,” capital-D. Gay Divorcee, a play in which a fictitious act of adultery had to It is easy to imagine a generation of young men being raised be invented to move the plot forward. without fathers and looking out the window like a kid in an Divorce in 1960 was so rare as to carry a hi nt of scandalous after-school special, waiting for Daddy to come home. Many of glamour, which it kept throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with them slip into harmless Clark Griswold–ism, trying to provide women’s magazines writing lifestyle pieces about informal for their own children the ideal families they themselves never weekday dinner parties for divorcées (the word itself is today had. But some of them end up grown men still staring out that faintly ludicrous) and men’s magazines celebrating divorce as window, waiting for the father-führer figure they have spent a second adolescence. their lives imagining, the protector and vindicator who will pro- The divorce rate doubled over the span of a few decades— tect them, provide for them, and set things in order. even as the marriage rate was declining. Add to that the violence Dougherty cites the work of the conservative polemicist of abortion, which fundamentally alters the relationship between Sam Francis, one of those old capitalism-hating conservatives men, women, and children, and what exactly “family” means to who very much embraced the paterfamilias model of govern- those of us born around the time Roe v. Wade was decided ment. His analysis, like mine, finds emotional and policy links becomes a very difficult question. between the Trump movement and its earlier incarnation, the movement. For Dougherty, Francis provides the philosophical link. He also provides the stylistic link: He HE concept of the nation as an extended family is the was a kook. “Francis eventually turned into something resem- notion that separates American-style conservatism, bling an all-out white nationalist,” Dougherty writes, “pen- with its roots in the classical-liberal ideas that informed ning his most racist material under a pen name. Buchanan Tthe American founding, from blood-and-soil, throne-and-altar didn’t take Francis’s advice in 1996, not entirely. But 20 years European nationalism. In Europe, this is an idea popular with later, [Francis’s book] From Household to Nation reads like a the Right: It is entirely unsurprising that Trump has enjoyed political manifesto from which the Trump campaign springs.” the endorsement of, among other European rightists, Jean- From Household to Nation is typical in that it is based on a cat- Marie Le Pen. In the United States, it is an idea—and an egory error, asking economics to do what economics doesn’t: error—popular on both sides of the political divide: The dis- to provide the means “not simply to gain material satisfac- tastefully squishy progressive writer George Lakoff argues tion but to support families and the social institutions and that the Am erican Right prefers a strict patriarchal model of the identities that evolve from families as the fundamental units family and, therefore, a similar model of political life, while of human society and human action.” Economics is about

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satisfying human wants, not defining them. The problem isn’t that Americans cannot sustain families, but that they do not wish to. Black Voters, It is therefore strange to me that Dougherty so fundamentally misdiagnoses the conservative reaction to Trump: “A Trump win,” he writes in another piece, “at least temporarily threatens the conservative movement, because it threatens to expose Too, Want a how inessential its ideas are to holding together the party.” (Dougherty also equates the fundraising engaged in by conser- vative organizations with the Social Security fraud that sustains Choice, Not his fictional Mike, a characterization that indicates the emotional temperament at work here.) Of course there is careerism in the conservative movement, but to proceed as though it were An Echo impossible to imagine that conservatives oppose a man running (knowingly or not) on a Sam Francis platform because we oppose the loopy crackpot racist ideas of Sam Francis is to per- The GOP and conservative principles can form an intellectual disservice. supply the lack

T is also immoral. BY THEODORE JOHNSON It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been Ivic timized by outside forces. It hasn’t. The white middle class ABINA LOVING dreamed of owning a business and may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle becoming her own boss. A black single mother liv- finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing S ing on Chicago’s South Side and working full time, hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about “glob- she decided to make the leap into entrepreneurship alists” and—odious, stupid term—“the Establishment,” but by turning her tax-preparation side gig, which she operated nobody did this to them. They failed themselves. out of her home, into a full-fledged business. With a little luck If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or and a lot of perseverance, she opened up Loving Tax Services eastern Kentucky, or my own native West Texas, and you take an and served the local clientele, who were mostly black and honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol working-class. addiction, the family anarchy—which is to say, the whelping of In June 2011, the IRS passed a regulation that mandated a human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog— new tax-preparer license, which totaled about $1,000 per pre- you will come to an awful realization. It wasn’t Beijing. It parer once all exams, fees, and costs for continuing education wasn’t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn’t were aggregated. This regulation would effectively put Loving immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our cur- out of business because she wouldn’t be able to afford to hire rent immigration levels are. It wasn’t any of that. enough preparers. So she sued the government, claiming that the Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. IRS was overstepping its authority. And she won. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupa- In a congressional hearing last October, presidential candi- tion. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very date Senator Ted Cruz held Loving’s misfortune up as an little to explain the dysfunction and negligence—and the incom- example of the harmful effects of intrusive government. He prehensible malice—of poor white America. So the gypsum has recounted her story a few times on the campaign trail. But business in Garbutt ain’t what it used to be. There is more to life for Loving, this was not just about standing up to an expanding in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality regulatory state. She saw herself as battling yet another in a about how the Man closed the factories down. long list of injustices that obstruct the path to opportunity, suc- The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communi- cess, and self-determination for some people and communities ties is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are nega- much more than for others. tive assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your Consider Loving’s situation holistically. She lives in a city cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sancti- where gun violence is shamefully high and its victims are dis- mony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your con- proportionately black. The Chicago Reporter reports that the spiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. seven Chicago neighborhoods with the highest percentages of Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem residents living in deep poverty (an annual income of $5,885 with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American under- or less for an individual, $12,125 for a family of four) are class is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main prod- predominantly black and that so are nearly two-thirds of ucts are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s the neighborhoods with above-average poverty rates. Under- speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What resourced and under-performing, Chicago public schools are they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real being closed, leaving parents with few suitable, affordable opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul. Mr. Johnson is a doctoral candidate in public policy at Northeastern University and If you want to live, of Garbutt. a former White House Fellow.

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options for their children. Crain’s Chicago Business reported HE Republican racial-justice platform should begin with that the South Side has lost 2,000 hospital beds in recent House speaker ’s anti-poverty plan, which decades, has no trauma centers, and suffers excessively long Ryan first introduced in 2014 at the American Enter prise ambulance-response times. It is one of the most under-served TInstitute. He addresses poverty by proposing reforms of aspects health-care markets in the world. Furthermore, banks, insur- of America’s economic, education, criminal-justice, and regula- ance companies, and even the Small Business Admini stration tory systems. are increasingly less likely to invest the capital that entrepre- For example, one element of Ryan’s proposal that was sup- neurial black Americans need. A great deal of economic mal- ported by most of the Republican presidential candidates at the ady is concentrated in black communities and effectively recent Forum on Expanding Opportunity is the cordoned off from the rest of the population. Opportunity Grant, which would consolidate several federal Loving’s particular predicament is an issue of racial justice. means-tested safety-net programs, such as SNAP, child care, and Though the factors contributing to the economic disadvantage housing assistance, into a single allocation to the states and give faced by black Americans belong to a variety of policy areas them more flexibility to apply those resources to the particular and are not necessarily drawn up with race in mind, their con- challenges they face in combating poverty. The grant would fluence places a specific, crushing burden on some segments of require able-bodied recipients to work, encourage states to the population. Racial justice is concerned with removing such develop new approaches to overcoming poverty, and require conditions and impediments to social mobility. periodic evaluation of the state’s administration to ensure proper To acknowledge that economic inequality overlaps with racial stewardship of taxpayer dollars. It is appropriate to return inequality is consonant with conservative principles. So is the decision-making authority to the states because poverty is not understanding that government programs designed to provide uniform across regions. Addressing poverty in New York City is citizens a hand up should be effective. But the Re publican party a different challenge from addressing it in rural Mississippi. has been reluctant to address race head-on, contributing to the Another major component of Ryan’s plan is an expansion of narrative that conservatives are out of touch and apathetic about the earned-income tax credit (EITC). The EITC is an effective the plight of black Americans. federal program that provides a tax credit to low-income fami- lies with at least one working member. Often a family is penal- ized with a reduction in benefits when a member starts working. HERE could be, however, a Republican racial-justice For poor families, this serves as a disincentive to work, so the platform. It would include business deregulation that EITC eliminates it and instead ensures that work is rewarded. especially helps small businesses, school-choice pro- Governors Chris Christie and John Kasich and former governor Tgrams that give parents more control over their children’s edu- have all spoken about the success of EITC expansion in cation, and criminal-justice reform that gives more Americans their states. a chance at redemption and opportunity instead of wasting peo- As part of the racial-justice platform, reform of the social safety ple’s lives and taxpayer dollars on mass incarceration. It would net must be coupled with education reform. To that end, Senator include the increased involvement of community and faith- Tim Scott of South Carolina has introduced the Creating Hope based organizations in the administration of local services to and Opportunity for Individuals and Communities through those in need. These sorts of conservative measures are not race- Education Act, a.k.a. the Choice Act. It would encourage school specific. Frankly, they don’t need to be. As I explain below, their choice for students with disabilities, expand options for low- cumulative effect can be oriented to remedy racial injustice. A income students in the nation’s capital, and create a school- Republican racial-justice platform would redefine the party as choice pilot program for military families. The bill is limited in exceptionally inclusive and welcoming to all those who simply scope but can illustrate best practices for school choice and be want to be law-abiding citizens making better lives for them- expanded once it is judged to be effective in helping families selves and their families. improve their education outcomes. No Republican presidential candidate has attempted to School-choice programs and home-schooling have proven explain how the conservative principle of less regulation could popular with black families that suffer from bad public schools benefit black small-business owners such as Sabina Loving and and charter-school lotteries that leave their children’s education the communities they employ and serve. This issue could be to chance. The consistent theme in the conservative education discussed as part of a web of issues that affect black Americans agenda is an increase in options for parents to decide what is best differently in different parts of the country. for their children. Republican proposals to allow more education Neither the party leaders nor the candidates have put the pieces block grants to states for elementary and secondary education, of the puzzle together. The racial-justice platform has not yet update and simplify the student-loan process, and expand federal been assembled from the numerous distinct policy aims the party work-study programs offer substantial contrasts with Democratic is already pursuing. If Republicans want to communicate their proposals, which are usually characterized by the complex principled commitment to equality and give black Americans a bureaucracy that attends centralization of power in Washington. clear choice at the ballot box, they must call the amalgamation Criminal-justice reform is an obvious plank of any racial- of the various policy ideas by its name. Just as the party has justice platform. Republicans should waste no time in develop- been quick to criticize the president for not uttering the words ing policies to return over-punished and rehabilitated Americans “radical Islami c terrorism,” so too must it own up to its own to the work force. In 2012, incarceration cost the nation well over reticence on race, justice, and the America that many blacks ex - $40 billion. And that figure doesn’t begin to account for the mil- perience. Republicans should not be afraid of uttering the words lions of potentially taxpaying wage earners whom incarceration “racial justice.” removes from the economy. Reform entails not only the reduction

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of sentences for nonviolent offenses but also the reintegration of former prisoners into communities to reduce recidivism and increase productivity. The Republican agenda focuses on state NASCAR and local programs that have demonstrated success and shares those models across the nation. Even the ultra-left Mother Jones magazine recognized Nebraska, Utah, Illinois, Alabama, and Georgia as states that have Republican governors and legisla- Nation tures and are leading on criminal-justice reform. As with the EITC and education, this is an issue on which conservatives Americans love the speedway, have led and gained bipartisan support. even if elites don’t On health care, Republicans should seek to amend the Afford - able Care Act not just to reduce costs and provide more choice but also to increase access to health care in terribly underserved BY CHARLES C. W. COOKE areas. They should also explore ways to incentivize private investors to help meet health-care costs through such - nisms as encouraging more private-equity investments in health WAS still in New York City when the sputtering began. care, encouraging the growth of health-savings accounts, and ex - “You?” a friend of mine asked, earnestly. “You are panding public-private ventures that increase the number of doc- I going to do that?” tors and facilities in the neediest areas. Giving people health “Why not?” I inquired. insurance but without ensuring timely and reliable access to doc- “Well, y’know. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be interested tors would hurt minorities and the poor the most. in that.” Conservatives should couple their proposals for regulatory “Why not?” reform and small-business growth to enable more black Ameri- “Well, it’s not really you, is it?” cans such as Sabina Loving to prosper. Taking this approach can “Why not?” reduce the employment-rate gap between whites and blacks, as And so forth. black businesses in black communities will likely hire black I get this a lot. Because I am English and I sound a little employees and serve black clientele. Money will circulate in clipped, strangers tend to assume that I share my fellow these communities for a longer period and thereby improve their countrymen’s disdain for America’s more traditional pas- economic vitality. Small businesses represent an enormous share times. By now, the friends I left at home have come to terms of the job creation that has occurred in recent years. with my apostasy, as a parent learns to accept his child’s Racial justice based on conservative principles also means foibles. But those friends I have made stateside remain per- that a community will partner with police to increase patrols in plexed and irritated. On questions such as guns, football, high-crime areas and empower citizens with some measure of trucks, and, well, pretty much all of politics, the East oversight. It means abandoning legislation that imposes obsta- Coasters of my acquaintance tend to remain stubbornly puz- cles to political participation by poor and minority citizens, zled. Unlike other immigrants, it is frequently implied, I such as frivolous laws that prohibit former convicts who have haven’t yet received the message: That Americana stuff? paid their debt to society from voting. It means ensuring that That’s fluff. federal funding doesn’t unintentionally exclude some citizens And so it was with my first foray into NASCAR, after and that it isn’t used as payment for political support. It means being invited to a race by a friend down South: “You?” ensuring that poor communities are not exploited by predatory “That?” “Really?” financial practices and are not drained of public resources that “Yes.” have been allotted to aid them. And it means doing all of the In all honesty, I was unsure whether “it” was, in fact, “me.” above through a federal government whose primary purpose is And so, with a fully open mind, I set out to Daytona Beach, to protect citizens from discriminatory practices while giving Fla., to see what all the fuss was about. them more power to make decisions about what works best for And what a fuss there was! This, after all, is a sport in their states and localities. which all is muscle and brawn and the American Spirit dial is turned proudly up to eleven. Here, before a quarter of a mil- lion fans, a host of hi-tech daredevils update the classic horse OR black voters, the biggest problem with the candidates’ race for the modern world. As the Montgolfier brothers were discussion of racial justice is the lack of alternative eventually upstaged by the Saturn V, so has Secretariat met his approaches. As such a voter, I can say without equivoca- piston-powered match. Whatever it is about the human condi- Ftion that giving the federal government more money to do what tion that leads otherwise relaxed people to strap themselves it should already be doing is not an attractive solution. I can also into roller coasters or jump willingly out of airplanes is also say that it is highly preferable to doing nothing. on happy display at the Daytona International Speedway. If Taken as a whole, the Republican agenda should offer a stark you ain’t seen a muscle car slam into a wall at 200 miles per alternative to the racial-justice plans offered up by the hour, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Democratic presidential candidates. It is smart politics, and In search of such thrills, the crowds pour in. Miles outside policy, for Republicans to package their initiatives together to the stadium, the ticket scalpers line the roads, offering to buy help every American have a better chance at achieving his and sell any spare stock. Inside the gates, the vendors stack God-given potential. their trucks as far as the eye can see; today, if they play their

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cards right, will pad their bottom lines for the year. There’s and my head rolling slowly around the track, I feel almost even a handful of determined religious activists hanging light-headed by the time the 50th lap is complete. around the periphery, the better to accost dawdling stragglers Perhaps it’s the beer? and shout wildly at them about the end times. Speaking of which, you’ll find little price-gouging inside And why not? Good preachers go where the converts are the stadium, which, given the event’s humble origins, is fit- most likely to be, and they are more than likely to be here at ting. Those stereotypes of toothless bubbas with Confederate- the races. For all the hype about the scale of college football, flag hats and sleeveless Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirts are, in 2016, it is NASCAR, not NCAA gridiron, that draws the biggest long, long out of date. And yet the outlaw spirit lives on in crowds: 300,000 in Indianapolis; 250,000 in Florida; their stead. All sports have their creation stories—it is, per- 170,000 in Texas; 160,000 in Alabama—the numbers add up haps, an unwritten part of their legitimacy—but NASCAR’s when you’re having fun. But here’s the strange part: Outside has the benefit of actually being true. what the denizens of America’s teeming coastal cities deri- That story? Back in the Temperance days, a host of good-ol’- sively term “flyover country,” few people so much as know boy Southerners took the souped-up cars that the moonshine- that these events exist. Sitting in northern Florida watching and-illegal-whiskey game had rendered invaluable and began the fighter jets scream through the show-opening flyover to race them for kicks. At first, their competitions were infor- and hearing the announcers run excitedly through their mal, held on whatever highway or mud track was temporarily prayers, a peculiar thought pops into my head: What would at their disposal. Before long, however, some of the more tal- it look like if the Super Bowl were invisible to at least half ented racers started looking for a more organized affair. They of the country? didn’t get it—at least not straightaway—for, without an estab- This, I imagine. This is what it would look like. All told, lished set of rules or any official imprimaturs, the spectacle NASCAR is held in the sort of place that the smart set quickly became a hotbed of malleable conventions and NASCAR is the No. 1 spectator sport in the United States, with 75 million Americans calling themselves fans.

abhors—Phoenix, the Milwaukee Mile, Michigan’s Belle Isle, crooked promoters. Eventually, a local auto-repair impresario the Speedway at Nazareth—and, even on its red-letter days, it named William France called a conference that resulted in the remains there. Examining cultural segregation a century or so creation of a governing body tasked with overseeing the races. hence, the anthropologists of the future will wonder at the On February 21, 1948, the National Association for Stock Car scale of the divide. On one sunny day in February, as many Racing was born. Americans as live in Baton Rouge packed themselves into a Since then, it has only grown. Today, NASCAR is the No. 1 small space to watch a beloved sporting event. And sport in the United States, with 75 million Americans nation’s trendsetters just yawned. calling themselves fans. Each year, the sponsors bring $3 bil- Perhaps this should be no surprise, for the Kentucky Derby lion into the fold, while TV contracts add $560 million to the this is most definitely not. Here, the fans prefer beer to cham- pot. Is that money all from “rednecks”? Not on your life. As of pagne; hot dogs to canapés; and T-shirts-and-ball-caps to 2014, one in five fans was non-white, and two in five were Milan’s lavish haute couture. There are few pretensions on women—facts that apparently surprise some. this southern tarmac; no Veuve Clicquot galas or Byronic Back in 2006, the producers of NBC’s Dateline attempted airs. There is just family and tradition and the unique roar of to provoke an altercation at a NASCAR event by “planting” jagged American grit. a couple of Muslim men at a race and filming the reaction that they received while walking around. The show’s pro- ducers claimed that they were “intrigued by the results of a OR uninitiated sorts such as myself, it is difficult to pre- recent Washington Post/ABC News poll and other articles pare for just how primeval the experience can be. On regarding increasing anti-Muslim sentiments in the United television, the cars seem almost majestic; but, from 20 States,” and that they hoped only to discover how real the Ffeet away, they are jungle animals. When, time and time animus was. Evidently, the answer shocked them, for noth- again, they come screaming past the bleachers, all of those ing at all happened. Per Ramsey Poston, who was the man- forgotten impulses are reactivated upon the instant: the fight- aging director of corporate communications for NASCAR at or-flight instinct that an overwhelming bass yields; the the time, the men “walked around, and no one bothered medieval fear of speed and witchcraft; the adrenaline that them.” Well, then. comes with knowing that someone close may get hurt. Coming from a culture in which it is considered normal for Gradually, lap by lap, the hypnosis begins. Round, and a game to last 25 days and still end up a tie (that, quite seri- round, and round they go, their positions changing at first ously, is how test cricket works), I found the all-or-nothing imperceptibly, and then, occasionally, in modest fits and nature of NASCAR jarring. In almost every sport I know, starts that prompt knowing nods from the veterans. With my even a bad mistake can be overcome given a little time: hearing protection dulling my contact with the outside world, Fumble the ball in football and you have a while to fix it;

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A race at Daytona International Speedway, February 12, 2009

lose your serve in tennis and the flub can be canceled out; ing my bearings, I realized: This was it. “Dale Jr.” had lost, strike out with the bases loaded in the eighth inning and your and so had I. There could be no comeback. team can make amends in the ninth. At the speedway, by con- In this regard, NASCAR is less akin to a hyped-up form of trast, even the slightest of blunders is catastrophic. old-fashioned horse racing than to the Roman Colosseum at Much to my chagrin, I would find this out firsthand. Shortly the height of its pomp. Pace the insistences of our more pro- after the engines started up, a member of my party leaned over gressive friends, human beings do not change with the to me and offered me a plastic sandwich bag filled with torn-up times—not really. We may adjust here and there, and we may pieces of newspaper. I looked at him quizzically. be cowed by institutions and social pressure or improved by “Ten dollar buy-in,” he said. “Winner takes all.” ideas and culture, but we are all animals at heart, and, in the Obliging, I reached into the bag, pulled out the first strip my safety of our modern world, we seek the thrills that we have fingers touched, and read the name that had been written on it: lost. It is no accident that the two most popular sports in “Dale Earnhardt Jr.” America are, by any objective standard, entirely brutal. Everyone around me reacted. “He got Dale Jr.! He got Football, per , is “violence punctuated by com- Dale Jr.!” Eyes met eyes. Some rolled in frustration. mittee meetings”; NASCAR is a merry-go-round interrupted I looked at the friend who had brought me to the race. “Is by the occasional explosion. The jet fighters and fireworks that good?” that we saw before the flags had been lowered were not the “Very good.” warm-up show so much as they were the overture to the From that moment on, I was hooked. Now, I had a rooting opera. Pleasant or not, danger is endlessly fascinating, and interest to go alongside my adrenaline. “If Dale Jr. wins,” the people enjoy the vicarious thrill of involving oneself in it at lady in front of me turned and told me, “you’ll walk away a distance. with about $400.” As it happened, we were in for quite the finish even without Alas, it was not to be. For most of the race, “Dale Jr.” hung Dale Jr. in the race—the closest finish in Daytona’s history, in back, sometimes pushing, sometimes lagging, but never tak- fact. By one-hundredth of a second, Denny Hamlin squeaked ing himself out of the running. And then, 30 laps from the past Martin Truex Jr. and took the prize for himself. In the end, he began to make his move. In the space of five min- stands, there was a brief moment of confusion, followed by a utes, he went from ninth to eighth, eighth to seventh, seventh swift photo call, followed by some of the loudest cheering to sixth. Suddenly, he moved from fifth to fourth. And then, I’ve heard outside a rock concert. as the crowd began to purr, he made a risky play for glory For the quarter million or so of us who were there, it was GLENN SMITH / and . . . crashed disastrously out of the race. quite a thrill, a fact that I had trouble conveying to anybody Busy as I was pre-spending my winnings, I didn’t imme- when I got back to New York City. AP PHOTO diately grasp what had happened. And then, slowly regain- “You? Really? You liked that?”

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The Long View BY ROB LONG

Mrs. Reagan—and judging from the tiniest understanding—is not how those seem to be unfolding filled with “waste, fraud, and below, I should think this was what abuse,” and I assure you that the kids call “a feature, not a bug.” Heaven would not be more heavenly And while everyone here enjoys if we just “got the Dominions, Dear Mrs. Reagan: hearing your husband speak spon- Virtues, and Powers out of the way.” taneously on a wide variety of top- Do we need all Three Spheres of We were delighted to welcome ics—I confess that until he sat Angelic Hierarchy? Yes, Mrs. you to the Heavenly Paradise down with me recently and ex - Reagan, we do. All three. And more Above, and we hope that the past plained his objections in rational besides. And I really don’t appreci- few days have been an easy transi- and inarguable terms, I was mildly ate the tone your husband takes— tion for you. Your reunion with your supportive of single-payer—those the new tone, may I add—when he beloved husband, President Ronald conversations are more along the talks about my personal work in the Reagan, was deeply moving, and I lines of casual, social, spur-of-the- Heavenly Realm. say that as someone who sees this moment-type deals. There I go again? Yes, Mrs. sort of thing daily. On Tuesday, you were observed Reagan, there I go again, and again In addition, the spontaneous wel- rearranging the lounge chairs in the and again and again. That’s sort of come musical performance by Mr. Sun Room so as to create an after- the whole point of Heaven, actually. Frank Sinatra was enjoyed by a large dinner-style speaker’s set-up, which And despite your husband’s poll portion of our residents—it’s hard to was not only inappropriate but numbers (!!!) and his clear popular- please everyone, as I’m sure you unprecedented. Everyone enjoyed ity with our residents, I have no know—and though I must confess to President Reagan’s subsequent re - intention of holding an election or a some initial discomfort at the lyrics marks, and yes, to answer your ques- referendum or whatever it is you to the reworded “Lady Is a Tramp,” tion, it was much easier and more have in mind, and I am asking you it was nice to see Mr. Sinatra being efficient with the chairs all facing directly to please stop encouraging so social and approachable. His ad - your husband, and, yes, to answer your husband in this matter. There mittance here was not without some your following question, he did look is and will be no “governor” or controversy, so please accept my better when the lighting was adjust- “president” of Heaven, and if you thanks and gratitude for your good ed—still, it’s a question of what, think I don’t see what’s behind your influence on him. exactly, he’s running for. enigmatic smile and your wide, And of course it goes without say- You should know that until your innocent eyes, you’ve got another ing that President Reagan has never arrival—and again, Mrs. Reagan, think coming. seemed happier. we’re all thrilled to have you But please, Mrs. Reagan, don’t That said, Mrs. Reagan, I was hop- here—but until your arrival, your take this note as anything but a ing there were a few things—small husband was, needless to say, friendly and encouraging—though details, really, nothing to be con- peacefully enjoying himself, read- firm—welcome. And as a gesture of cerned about—that we could review ing, napping, catching up with old friendship, I’ve arranged to have as you settle in and get comfortable friends, occasionally performing in your husband, should he wish, serve for what I hope—what we all hope— amateur theatricals, in a word, as the president of the Residents will be a stress-free and pleasant relaxing from what was, clearly, Union. He can serve as union presi- eternity. the eventful and highly interesting dent as long as he likes. There’s At this time—and there are no plans life you two shared. zero chance, frankly, that he’ll get to alter or amend this in the future— And then, suddenly: Boom! You any farther. there is no “governor” of Heaven, arrive and start whispering and he’s Oh, and I went to the mat and got much less a “president.” So it’s a puz- running for “governor of Heaven” your red robes approved. zler to us why you seem, after (let’s on what is, quite frankly, an insult- Let’s agree, then, to stop all of this face it) barely a week here, to be sug- ing platform. The Heavenly Choir of political nonsense and just be happy gesting to your husband that he might Angels does not need to be “small- with what we have? be effective in either role. er.” It is supposed to be large. The We don’t have “elections” or administration of Paradise—of Yours in welcome, “campaigns” in the Great Reward, which, let’s be clear, you have only Peter

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Athwart BY JAMES LILEKS Trump’s Golden Ticket

ON’T worry, this won’t be as dorky as it sounds. operated shock collars for cats, because “thae be verra, Nerdy, perhaps, but not so dorky. In the fifth verra disobedient.” (He died, raving, the next day.) And of Star Trek movie— course there’s the famous story about Bill Gates, riding D Hey, come back! Sit down, don’t worry. This high on Windows money, deciding to diversify into ever- will be painless. In the movie, the USS Enterprise is sharp knives sold at 3 A.M. on TV. This computer thing hijacked for the 493rd time and driven to a remote planet could go south any day now, but people need knives. where God lives. (Don’t ask.) God wants a ride to another Visionaries, all. star system and requests the use of Captain Kirk’s space- So it didn’t work out? It’s not like he was personally craft. Kirk, detecting the work of some unfathomably vast involved in the project—well, aside from speaking at the con artist, asks, “Why does God need a spaceship?” Good launch in Miami in 2009, where he told a roaring crowd question. Here’s another: that the product was tremendous and he was tremendous Why does a billionaire need to sell vitamin supplements? and they were going to be tremendous and you know what Donald Trump did. One hesitates to detail the story of the tremendous people who were successful had in common? Trump Network, lest the libel laws be “opened up” by a They were tremendously successful. Thank you. He also Supreme Court “bill” (signed by Trump’s sister) and critics made a personal testimonial on site, of Trump find themselves in So Much Trouble, So Much, I which had links to other great products, like Snazzle Guarantee It. (This is worse than A Lotta Trouble, I Tell Snaxx. These were nutritional snacks for kids. Tremendous You.) But the details were described by ’s snacks, really something, I’m telling you. Not available in Stat News website, which covers health and science topics, stores, as commercials used to say, as if that meant the and so far the Globe hasn’t been sued into penury. product was too good for mere retail. You had to buy them It’s like the Trump U story, except you didn’t pay $35,000 from the most trusted source you knew: your sister-in-law, to learn secret business tricks like “Buy low, sell high.” who signed up for this furshlugginer multi-level marketing The Trump Network sold vitamins, which isn’t unusual— thing, and now everyone had to buy the stupid snacks to turn on the radio and you will hear someone offering humor her. Before this, it was cayenne colonics. mega-beet super-bee-pollen açaí-kiwi extract with pure Wannabe presidents Huckabee and Ben Carson aren’t cuttlebone-and-fish-oil beta-blocking antioxidant joint exactly strangers to the Miracle Supplement game, either. relief, packed in a pill as big as a lumberjack’s toe. The But neither was involved in a multi-level marketing scheme Trump difference, however, was his network’s uncanny to sell video phones, another Trump-endorsed business that ability to discern which vitamins you needed. Of course, was tremendous and really, really fantastic. Successful? they couldn’t diagnose you from a distance. You had to give Well, in some dimension, you can use your video phone to them something. order , , and a seat on the Trump You had to ship your urine to the Trump Network. Shuttle, but not this one. Don’t worry, they provided the vials. No one was expected None of this matters, because Trump is strong and smart to FedEx a sponge. and will build a wall and activa te the anti-Muslim force Is this not how all great fortunes are maintained? Pre- field and take oil. Mark his words, the oil, it’s going to be paid urine mailers? taken, okay? So much oil, you won’t believe it. But it is It did not end happily, according to Stat News: odd to see someone whose brand relies on towering finan- cial success—it would make J. P. Morgan’s testicles wither “The Trump Network had gotten in trouble financially,” said in shame if he were alive, I’m telling you—be connected Bonnie Futrell, a former marketer and “diamond director”— to these penny-ante rinky-dink huckster schemes. one of the top-tier marketers in the company. “They weren’t being able to pay [the lab]. They weren’t paying vendors. On the other hand, if you learned that Bernie Sanders They weren’t paying us.” had come out with a line of black support-hose socks to be worn with sandals, you’d almost be relieved: At least Of course, this says nothing about Trump’s business acu- he had some knowledge of the business world. At least men; he just lent his name. (And his crest, which is your he’d have learned a thing or two about the effect of high guarantee of genuine total Trumposity.) It says nothing labor costs on the domestic sock industry. He might have about his huge fortune, because lots of billionaires decide realized that a country with 35 types of deodorant is a that a sideline in multi-level marketing might be the ticket better place than a country that makes one type, and to the next pot of gold—in this case, given what people sent doesn’t have any, because the government nationalized in for analysis, literally a pot of gold. We all know the story the factory. of Andrew Carnegie telling his board of directors it was At least Trump tried! Anyway, it all answers the ques- time they branch out from steel into selling small battery- tion Kirk posed: Why would God need to hitch a ride to some place? Because someone else paid for the gas, Mr. Lileks at www.lileks.com. that’s why.

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this critique. The “Eisenhower pro- and a shadowy Eastern Establishment that A Turning gram,” he wrote, is “an attitude, which supposedly forced “liberal” nominees on goes by the name of a program, undi- an unwilling Republican party. For this rected by principle, unchained to any strain of conservatism, there is truly noth- Point for coherent idea as to the nature of man and ing new under the sun. society.” Early conservatism meant to After this strong start, the book falters Conservatives provide that principle, and it did so, in as Dionne labors to make the case that the pages of NATIONAL REVIEW and, conservatism has remained inherently HENRY OLSEN most important, in ’s Goldwaterite in the five decades after epochal and bestselling book, The Goldwater’s massive defeat. He correctly Conscience of a Conservative (1960). notes that Frank Meyer, father of long- Conscience grounded conservatism time president Gene firmly in the Constitution and liberty and Meyer, created the theory of opposed virtually everything that had after 1964 to allow all different strains of been built in Washington since 1932. Not conservatism to coexist peacefully. He just opposed, but committed to its repeal. fails, however, to note that this means Early conservatism debated whetoher t there are different strains of conservatism “contain” Soviet Communism or “roll it and that this peaceful coexistence, not back”; Conscience applied the rollback suppressed Goldwater ism, has been philosophy to Washington, D.C. Gold - modern conservatism’s defining feature water told America: “I have little interest ever since. Dionne also passes over Bill Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism from in streamlining government or making it Buckley’s conversion from the unrepen- Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond, by E. J. more efficient, for I mean to reduce its tant opponent of Ike to a man who, post- Dionne Jr. (Simon & Schuster, 544 pp., $30) size. I do not undertake to promote wel- 1964, adopted the mantra that the Right fare, for I propose to extend freedom. My must always support the most conserva- T would be easy for conservatives aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. tive electable candidate. Incrementalism, to dismiss E. J. Dionne’s latest It is not to inaugurate new programs, but not revolution, became the Right’s book as a book on the Right by a to cancel old ones that do violence to the approach after Goldwater’s defeat. man of the Left, and one that Constitution, or that have failed in their Dionne treats the Bush presidencies Itherefore suffers from the usual sins of purpose, or that impose on the people an fairly, noting how each took issue in prac- omission and commission. unwarranted financial burden.” tice with the Goldwaterite strain of con- Easy, but wrong. Dionne’s treatment is The rest of Conscience shows that a servatism without mounting a political neither thorough nor wholly accurate, Goldwateresque state would indeed, as or intellectual challenge to it. By neither but he correctly identifies why conserva- pithily says, be “small vanquishing neo-Goldwaterites nor con- tives either fail to win power or, when we enough to drown in a bathtub.” verting them to their cause, both Bushes do, do not use that power to transform Dionne also shows that many of the set themselves up for disappointment America. Conservatives who want to arguments made by today’s Tea Party are and challenge from those elements win and effectively use political power substantially identical to those put for- when events inevitably conspired to must, then, come to grips with the central ward by the early conservatives. The the- make each man politically vulnerable. question Dionne poses: Does the intellec- ory that low tax rates for the top brackets But both Bushes were able to rise pre- tual legacy of Barry Goldwater prevent would lead to greater economic activity cisely because they could draw on fusion- conservatism from being an effective was not original to the 1970s supply- ism and support from non-Goldwaterite governing movement? siders: It was made by the American conservatism in intra-party battles. Dionne argues that it does. He starts Liberty League in the 1930s. The idea that Dionne’s treatment of the Tea Party and by correctly noting that 1950s-era conservatives lose elections because the the current administration is the weakest American conservatism arose to oppose elites running the Republican party won’t part of the book. If conservatives can be Republicans who were not dedicated to put forth a true conservative, thereby rightly accused of sometimes seeing the overturning the . He tells with leading millions of people not to vote, was world through rose-colored glasses, persuasive detail the story of an early not made up out of thin air by Ted Cruz Dionne’s view of the last decade is clearly movement that found Dwight Eisen- after 2012: The early conservatives said a case of seeing the world through deep- hower’s “Modern Republicanism” the same thing. Betrayal by GOP leaders blue spectacles. Obama is presented as seriously wanting. One William F. was also central to the original conserva- a conciliator whose apostasies against Buckley Jr. quote nicely summarizes tive argument. Before there was a John his left fail only because of Republican Boehner and a “corrupt, crony capitalist intransigence fueled by the GOP’s parti- Mr. Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public class” to castigate, there was Dwight sanship and a hyper-Goldwaterite core. Policy Center. Eisen hower’s “dime-store New Deal” Any conservative or Republican who has

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been remotely involved in negotiations If Goldwaterism is at heart a love of lib- If our reforms are primarily tactical and and disputes with Obama would find this erty, it seems that today it is a love that programmatic, they might lead to tempo- retelling laughable. With the passage of dare not speak its name. rary success but they will ultimately be time, a more balanced rendering of these Nevertheless, conservatism remains a found wanting. Recall that the heart of events might be possible. But Dionne’s movement that defines itself largely by Buckley’s critique of Ike was not that he account is not that. what it is against rather than what it is for. was liberal but that his approach was Indicative of this is his resurrection of This was fusionism’s primary contribu- “undirected by principle.” Ike’s Modern the progressive refrain that conservatism tion; by downplaying the differences Republicanism, Clinton’s Democratic is, at its heart, at worst racist and at best among conservatives regarding what we Leadership Council and the Third Way, racially tinged. He presents this argument are for, we could better mobilize politi- and Tony Blair’s New Labour shared this throughout, and it is true that pre-1964 cally to combat what we all agreed we characteristic, and all withered quickly conservatism was at worst racist and at were against—Soviet Commu nism and under fire from within because their parti- best racially insensitive. But to think that the rapid advance of federal-government sans desperately wanted something prin- nothing whatsoever has changed in the spending and regulation. cipled they could be for. ensuing 50 years flies in the face of the Conservatism’s weakness today comes I believe not only that such a unifying facts. The very white southerners in from the fact that these core ambitions principle can be found, but that it Tennessee, for example, who moved from have either been met (the defeat of the already exists. It is the intellectual legacy Kerry to McCain in 2008—often touted Soviet Union) or prove to be insufficient of Ronald Reagan, which when studied on the left as proof of conservative racial- in practice. Once we win elections, we on its own yields an affirmative fusion- ism—backed a black moderate Demo crat, find it is not tenable to simply not do ism that unites the different strains of Conservatism remains a movement that defines itself largely by what it is against rather than what it is for.

Harold Ford, for the Senate in 2006 at liberal things. Con servatism in power conservatism into something mighty much higher rates than those at which must act, and since conservatives them- and new. Dionne contends that my view they would back Obama in 2008. South selves differ and have always differed is romantic, but it is anything but. The Carolina whites elected Nikki Haley, a about how to act, conservatism in prac- real Reagan romantics are those who conservative of Indian ancestry, and Tim tice finds it difficult to do anything other view him through their own ideological Scott, a black conservative, to statewide than preside over existing government lenses and thus fail to see him for what office in 2010 and 2012 respectively. The structures. In this sense, all strains of he really was. fact that white southerners can back black conservatism have become mere tax col- A conservatism that pays lip service to and other non-white candidates over lectors for the liberal welfare state. the Goldwaterite ideal of welfare-state white opponents in races that immediately Fusionism created a political confed- rollback will neither succeed politically br acketed 2008 suggests that the story of eration, uniting different conservatisms nor be effective in providing a principle what happened in the rural, conservative in opposition to a clear and present dan- that explains why we want what we say South is much more complicated than pro- ger, mainly the Soviet Union. In this we want, a government that gives Ameri - gressives such as Dionne want to admit. sense, it was like the original Articles of cans a Better Deal, one that gives us But these flaws do not detract from the Confederation uniting the Colonies in more for less. It will forever define suc- salience of his main point, that the recur- opposition to King George. Once the cess in ways that are not achievable and rent problems the Right has in both win- common enemy had been defeated, do not even represent what most conser- ning elections and enacting meaningful however, the Articles proved insuffi- vatives want to achieve. It will, under policy changes are directly tied to its dif- cient for the newly independent country the guise of uniting us, in fact divide us ficulty in dealing with the Goldwaterite to govern itself. It was only with the and inevitably lead to deeper and bitterer heritage. It is quite clear that there is no replacement of confederation with fed- divisions until at last the entire conserv- appetite in America for the sort of roll- eration, the replacement of the Articles ative edifice will be a house divided, back that Goldwater advocated. Indeed, with the “more perfect Union” of the and fall. even the most ardent tea-partiers and neo- Constitution, that America could truly We conservatives face our own ren- Goldwater groups shrink from claiming start to act as a sovereign state. dezvous with destiny, our own time for that there is. Ted Cruz and the Heritage This is the challenge those of us choosing. We either face up to it and fin- Foundation, for example, proclaim that who are known as Reformocons face. ish the work we have been bequeathed, they merely want to reform and shrink the Dionne says that we have not yet chal- to reform conservatism in line with all of welfare state, not repeal it. Full-throated lenged the existing intellectual architec- its principles and transform a negative Gold waterism is found only on the hard- ture of the Right, and in this he is confederation into a positive federation, core libertarian right, a movement that, it largely correct. The movement is badly or we condemn our movement to “a should be noted, started in earnest only in need of a Con servative Reformation, thousand years of darkness.” Dionne’s after Meyer’s fusionism tempered the and Reformocons must decide what we book, for all its faults, clarifies the chal- original anti-statist core of conservatism. want to reform and why. lenge we face.

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS

to see themselves as participating in a self-understanding”; “that it is an art The Critic’s centuries-long dialogue with predeces- form in its own right”; and “that it exists sors. Imitation was the rule, but not in to enhance the glory of the other arts.” the stultifying sense in which that is For the most part, this is a good book Art now understood: Artists participated in for our time, especially in its considera- a generational transmission that passed tion of the role of a “discerning sensibil- ELIZABETH POWERS on the characteristics of forebears in ity” amid the present “concatenation of the creation of new progeny. (Since consumer choices,” not to forget con- this process mimicked the natural one flicting critical voices. It is the work of a of reproduction and the creation of thoughtful person, and it is wide rang- new life, it is strange that it is now ing—directed at people who have at called “patriarchal.”) Critics were the least a passing acquaintance with H. L. gatekeepers, keeping the conversation Mencken, George Steiner, Terry Eagleton, on track. and T. S. Eliot, not to mention French The 19th century produced a new New Wave directors, The A vengers, and self-understanding among artists. Gone The Searchers. There is a lovely analysis was the obeisance to tradition, and of Rilke’s poem “The Torso of Apollo,” each generation (or even decade) en - to portray the way that a work of art is Better Living through Criticism: How to Think deavored to create works that strove to part of the tradition of responding to earlier works of art, in effect itself rep- about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth, by A. O. be radical, thereby declaring its eman- cipation from indebtedness to the past. resenting “criticism.” Because of the Scott (Penguin, 288 pp., $28) The art trade became a free-for-all, as poem, our perception of the qualities of can be seen in the multiplication of the original work is altered; otherwise, ILM critics are an opinionated artistic movements. Pitched battles for writes Scott, we might be looking at lot, and many have written status among practitioners of the arts “nothing but cold, broken stone.” Such books on individual filmmak- were accompanied by intense critical thoughtful consideration is among this ers. A. O. Scott, however, a debates and the rise of great critics, book’s pleasures. FNew York Times film critic since 2000, including Walter Pater and Matthew That said—and this review is also takes on the subject of opinion itself, Arnold. Once upon a time, those an act of criticism, right?—Better i.e., “criticism.” Some people think art debates meant something—recall the Living through Criticism reveals what doesn’t need interpreting or analyzing; it booing on the opening night of After - happens to too many people’s appre- is what it is. For them, criticism is not a noon of a Faun—but lately a cloud of ciation for the arts when they majored handmaiden, but rather a kind of step- doubt has stood over the critical enter- in literature in college in the 1980s. sister to art, an intrusion on their indi- prise, as the current plethora of artis- The conversation that criticism sup- vidual, unmediated response. They can tic phenomena and of digital outlets posedly represents has been reduced do without criticism, thank you, because for opinion has eroded the authority to a one-size-fits-all judgment, and it entails judging—distinguishing the of critics. It is through such thickets not by the ignoramuses, but by the bad from the good, the beautiful from of dialogue and monologue that Better smart people. Thus, in the chapter the less so. And who, especially in our Living through Criticism seeks to “Lost in the Museum,” we are remind- postmodern age, has the right to judge? steer readers. ed of the “social and economic consid- Scott is of a different mind. Scott begins in Socratic mode, with a erations” that brought masterpieces to The terms “beauty” and “truth” in Q and A. Such dialogues, interspersed the Louvre (where we might encounter the subtitle are reminders that criti- throughout, represent a kind of critical the headless statue of Apollo, of cism goes back in the West at least to self-examination of Scott by Scot t. The Rilke’s poem). “Excellence” is an Plato and Aristotle, who did not have a opening one begins defensively, de - evaluation that is henceforth to be daily or weekly reviewing gig. Plato scribing the blowback against his re - weighed against the knowledge that was a theorist of art, and his remit was, view of a movie that went on to gross the “treasures of civilization housed in indeed, pleasure, beauty, and truth, over $1 billion. The intemperate reaction this gargantuan pile of masonry were while Aristotle was more interested in by the star against “intellectualizing” purchased, stolen, commissioned, or the nuts and bolts of the various arts about the movie, a personal in stance of coerced so that we . . . might have a (e.g., music and tragedy). After ancient the skepticism and suspicion facing crit- look and pick up a cheap souvenir times, the practice of criticism fell into ics today, has led Scott to what is in manufactured by sweated labor half a abeyance, but from the Renaissance to effect an apology (in the Socratic sense world away. Beneath the steady tread the mid 18th century, with the growth of a defense of his beliefs). Besides of tourist feet you can hear a faint echo of arts patronage and the revival of revealing his formative influences, in of primordial violence—exploitation, classical models in art, it returned with these dialogues Scott defends what crit- appropriation, objectification.” If you a vengeance. Artists and critics came ics do and discusses how they make haven’t got the point, Walter Benjamin judgments. And he makes some big hammers it home: “No document of Elizabeth Powers is writing a memoir about the claims for the critical enterprise: that it civilization . . . is not at the same time ascendance of contemporary liberalism. is a necessary activity “vital to human a document of barbarism.”

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Such scruples sit uneasily with the job critical opinion are produced to express became a comment on the performance; of helping the public come to te rms with the critics’ superiority and their conde- call it part of the conversation. what is frequently on exhibit in muse- scension toward what Scott calls “the Scott does not pay much attention to ums these days. Especially for folks who middling masses.” formal elements in judging a work of have never heard of Jacques Derrida, An example he discusses is a 2010 art, relegating them to the category of contemporary art produces puzzlement performance piece, The Artist Is Pre - “Formalism,” a resolutely pre-postmodern and discomfort, as well as the feeling sent, at New York’s Museum of Modern approach to criticism. Formalism, how- that they are missing something. While Art. The artist was the Serbian Marina ever, is simply a type of literary analysis Scott proposes, for instance, that “art is Abramović, who sat unmoving in a that focuses on technical devices, e.g., whatever an artist says it is” (I assume chair in the museum’s atrium while vis- metrics, figurative language, and so on, he is not speaking for himself here, but itors, on the other side of a small table, attempting thereby to distinguish ordi- conveying current wisdom), he con- had the chance to sit opposite her. With nary language from the literary. In cedes that “this fluid, boundaryless all the media and publicity that the other words, art is not life. And knowl- identity can make it feel more rather museum was able to harness, it was an edge of formal elements is an indica- than less exclusive.” In other words, you enormous success, with 750,000 visitors tion that a critic has thoroughly studied have to be among the cognoscenti to (at $25 a pop), including Lady Gaga. his subject and understands how it appreciate it. “Like much contemporary art,” Scott “works.” Otherwise, how is his opinion This “boundaryless” situation was writes, “[The Artist Is Present] was (and different from that of ordinary folks? set out by Kant: It is not in the object is) an intensely cerebral undertaking, Call it “intellectualizing,” if you like, itself that beauty inheres but in our arising from a set of theoretical concerns but it’s important, even as it is, in the experience of it. But there is something about gender, the body, and . . . the insti- best cases, balanced by the critic ’s per- imperious about aesthetic appreciation, tutional and ontological nature of art sonal reaction. Recall, for instance, how about what we call “taste.” It is fine and itself.” Got that? people once relished Pauline Kael’s good to say that beauty is in the eye of Scott, to his credit, goes beyond such New Yorker reviews. Kael rhapsodized, the beholder, but when something artspeak. He mentions a strange crowd but she also knew her stuff. pleases (or displeases) us, we feel that phenomenon: Some members of the Scott is a good guide to the vexed nature everyone else should also be pleased paying audience found the event mov- of the contemporary critical terrain, but (or displeased), as if they were seeing ing, as recorded by the tear-stained faces there is throughout the book an irritat- the object with our eyes. This demand captured in photos posted on Tumblr. ingly indecisive “yes and no,” “either/or” for universal agreement is the essence And a few patrons, according to the quality to what he says. Clearly, he can’t of “subjective universality.” Scott’s curator, succumbed to the illusion that decide whether the critic should be a “tri- discussion of Kant does not explore the Abramović was falling in love with bune of the common mind” or a “princi- irony that it is often the so-called open- them. Scott traces these reactions to the pled antagonist, sidestepping the whims minded who are the most intolerably power of the human presence. My cyni- of the crowd in favor of eternal standards insistent that everyone agree with their cal take is that some people forced or her own idiosyncrasies.” judgment of what is “true” or “good.” themselves into a reaction; after all, they It is only in the final dialogue, “The The public is correct in its suspicion had waited for hours and paid $25 to be End of Criticism,” that Scott offers any that both contemporary art and current admitted to her presence. Their tears insight into his own enthusiasms. His discussion of Ratatouille is a fine exam- ple of what a good critic brings to the job, returning to his original claim that art 36 WEST PITMAN and criticism are in conversation. Most important, he conveys what he calls the What witches, what magicians, but . . . they needed “precritical capacity for simple delight,” Sixty years—the slowest sleight of hand i.e., the simple thrill that a well-crafted On record. Did they fail to understand work can elicit. Un fortunately, before We were sufficiently distracted on reaching that point, readers have to wade Our own already, as the years receded? through the latter part of the book, which Still, they waved their wands, and what went gone mixes in a lot of ugliness—including repetitious statements about market Were placid, tidy, gabled fronts, not brave forces, academic battles, the loss of dis- At all (no need) but plain- and vinyl-sided, tinction between professional and ama- Clapboarded, with mums at their foundations; teur, careerism vs. idealism, and so on. Neat, painted bungalow s that could not save This “apology” for criticism could have Themselves from now; the seedy transformations; used a little more enthusiasm and some Lawns in weeds; the front-porch screens elided; strongly held opinions (imagine a Times Junkers blocked on unpaved driveways. Well. critic having the nerve to take on the vac- Though sluggish mages, still they cast their spell. uousness of current academic discourse), especially if he is serious in asserting that —LEN KRISAK criticism makes life better.

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS

Brother (1914) give us what he called Charles Dickens taught him that it was Inside the “that intensely ‘reacting’ small organ- only “onto the shoulders of appreciation” ism,” the young Henry James, and evoke that the “wings” of “conscious criticism” with great vividness what Victorian were meant to fit. Master America was like. This sensibility is in his fiction, too. James’s third-person descriptions of G. K. Chesterton remarked of James that LAUREN WEINER himself are of a child thrilled “just to be “his whole world is made out of sympa- somewhere—almost anywhere would thy”—and so the characters endear them- do—and somehow receive an impression selves to us despite their being weird or an accession, feel a relation or a vibra- (Olive Chancellor), or full of inadequa- tion.” As to “what it at all appreciably cies (Lambert Strether) or even criminal- gave him,” that would “be difficult to level duplicities (Madame Merle). state.” He gamely tries—this is after all James fans can pick up from the life James we’re talking about. His apparently many connections to the work. We gain photographic memory conveys the New insight into such Jamesian literary themes York, Albany, Newport, London, Paris, as the nature of artistic inspiration and the Geneva, and Bonn of his youth, down to constant measuring of the manners and “smell[ing] the cold dusty paint and iron morals of the New World against those of as the rails of the Eighteenth Street cor- the Old, as well as into the painterly Autobiographies, by Henry James ner rub his contemplative nose.” aspects of modern storytelling and the (Library of America, 850 pp., $37.50) Shy, sickly, and lacking confidence in inspiration for the spiritual/material ema- his abilities (whether physical, intellectual, nations in James’s ghostly tales. HE autobiographical works of or artistic), he projects a surface docility The restless Jameses sailed back and Henry James (1843–1916) are beneath which ferocious powers are de- forth across the Atlantic a lot, depositing from the Master’s later period, veloping. The boy hardly looks so much their five children in far-flung places in and we all know what that as he “gapes”—that word is used again search of a good education. That educa- means:T The style is ornate, and reading it and again, reflecting the boy’s vulnerabil- tion was highly unsystematic, though. is no picnic. ity but also his zeal to add to his “impres- The family sometimes pulled up stakes James would pace around the room and sional harvest.” abruptly. Henry James Sr. lived off in- dictate this prose to an assistant at her His earliest years were spent in Lower vestments of the wealth that had been typewriter. (His main assistant, Theodora Manhattan, where many James cousins earned by his father, so a downturn in the Bosanquet, left a fine remembrance of lived. Little Henry Jr. was allowed to financial markets could cause a sudden him that’s included in this collection.) “If wander the streets of Greenwich Village need to economize. I may parenthesize,” the author of Daisy all by himself. The memory stirs in him Henry Sr. emerges here as a wonderfully Miller, The Turn of the Screw, and The quirky figure: an energetic but not too dis- Ambassadors will say—giving his reader wonder at the liberty of range and oppor- ciplined public intellectual, an indulgent a sinking feeling. Discussing his cousins tunity of adventure allowed to my tender parent who cultivated in his children, par- in Albany, for example, he writes: age; though the puzzle may very well ticularly William and Henry, independent- drop, after all, as I ruefully reflect that I mindedness and an ambition for creative It must be allowed that there was noth- couldn’t have been judged at home reck- achievements of which he himself was less or adventurous. What I look back to ing composite in any spell proceeding, not capable. A disciplinarian he was not. whether directly or indirectly, from the as my infant license can only have had for its ground some timely conviction on With great affection James writes of him: great Albany connection: this form of the “Weakness was never so positive and agreeable, through whatever appeals, the part of my elders that the only form of plausible, nor could the attitude of sparing could certainly not have been more of a riot or revel ever known to me would be piece, as we say—more of a single super- that of the visiting mind. you be more handsomely or on occasion fused complexion, an element or princi- even more comically aggressive.” ple that we could in the usual case ever so He may have been a milquetoast, but The Jameses’ repatriation under finan- easily and pleasantly account for. milquetoasthood had its privileges. cial pressures in 1860 was also, ironically, Circuses and the theater were an obses- a return to America from Europe for the To make it through the thickets of sion for James and his friends and rela- sake of high culture. William James words, you have to put yourself in a kind tions, in New York and in the European wanted to study painting and sculpture of trance. While the Middle Years (post - cities to which his dilettantish, kindly par- under William Morris Hunt in Rhode humous, 1917) portion of the volume ents took him. Discerning the varying Island. The apprenticeship was not only doesn’t to my mind yield much of inter- quality of the productions he saw, he William’s but also his brother Henry’s. est, the memoirs of his early life richly started to grasp something crucial: that The future philosopher and founder of reward perseverance. A Small Boy and the authentic critic criticizes not out of American psychology would not end up Others (1913) and Notes of a Son and animus but from an essentially benevo- pursuing the plastic arts, nor would his lent position. His boyhood experiences of brother, but it was a key moment. Lauren Weiner is the associate editor of Law and being spellbound by staged versions of The future muralist John La Farge was Liberty (www.libertylawsite.org). Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the works of a student of Hunt’s alongside William

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The Real Land Of Illusions

PETER TONGUETTE

Henry James Jr.

James. While the pupils were with their his brother “addicted to ‘experiments’ West of Eden: An American Place, by Jean Stein teacher, the tagging-along younger broth- and the consumption of chemicals.” (Random House, 368 pp., $30) er was allowed to muck around with casts William’s “boldly disinterested absorp- and canvases in another part of the studio. tion of curious drugs”—he famously T is possible to gain perspective “No one disturbed me,” writes James. ingested nitrous oxide to test its effects on on almost anything after 70 years. “The earnest workers were elsewhere; I the brain—was “often appalling to a Let us consider, then, Hollywood had a chamber of the temple all to myself, nature so incurious as mine in that direc- cinema as it was in 1946. with immortal forms and curves, with tion.” Henry goes on to say that although IWilliam Wyler’s The Best Years of Our shadows beautiful and right, waiting there he himself was not interested in “visibly Lives won plaudits and eight Academy on blank-eyed faces for me to prove provoked or engineered phenomena, by Awards for its consideration of the lot of myself not helpless.” The forms were that same amount was I open to those of soldiers after World War II. The film still “company just then for muddled me and the mysteriously or insidiously aggres- impresses with its stoicism and sim- for the queer figures projected by my sive, the ambushed or suffered sort.” plicity—the way, for instance, Sergeant crayon. Frankly, intensely—that was the That’s indeed what we get in the stories Stephenson (Fredric March) wants his great thing—these were the hours of Art, and novels—the spurned lady in The excited teenage children to quiet down in art definitely named, looking me full in Aspern Papers, the conspiracy of Gilbert order to make his return a surprise to his the face and accepting my stare in re - Osmond and Madame Merle against wife (Myrna Loy). Frank Capra’s It’s a turn—no longer a tacit implication or a Isabel Archer in The Portrait of a Lady, Wonderful Life was no blockbuster, but its shy subterfuge, but a flagrant unattenu- and so many others. Henry is here defin- idea that one’s friends and family are to be ated aim. I had somehow come into the ing his young self in contradistinction to prized above all else proved appealing temple by the back door.” William, but when we step back, we see over the long run. And it was a film from Just as important as the Jamesian two peas in a pod. It is characteristic of England—Powell and Pressburger’s A independent-mindedness was a particu- both of them to find odd things to appre- Matter of Life and Death—that best encap- lar stance—idealistic and skeptical at the ciate, including the faculties of apprecia- sulated the postwar mood: RAF pilot David same time—toward and morality. tion themselves. The famous novelist Niven has steeled himself to die for God and Henry Sr., like his friends among the wrote like a psychologist, and the famous country, but when a heavenly blunder caus- Transcendentalists, was less than im - psychologist wrote like a novelist, goes es him to retain his life, he determines to do pressed with the accomplishments of the the saying, and it’s borne out in spades in so in the company of charming Kim Hunter. leading scientists, clergymen, and busi- this volume. These films had more than just produc- nessmen of the day. This attitude was As is the fact that the return to the tion quality going for them. They shared impressed upon the next generation. It homeland was crucial to the eventual a certain gravity—a sense that issues shows in the stories and novels of the success of both. This success, Henry Jr. such as war and peace, love and kindness, younger Henry James, which explore hints, was in a way built upon the failure were to be taken seriously. That does not what he calls “the Puritan residuum” of of the father: The elder Henry, a promot- mean, of course, that those who made the Americans—and by that phrase, he er of Emanuel Swedenborg’s theology, these films were moralists, but that the means something pure, something that is had “gradually ceased to ‘like’ Europe” spirit of the age—the West, triumphant in able to survive the corruptions of life be cause, “as a worker in his own field war, proceeding onward and upward at abroad. It is not conventional; it knows and as to what he held most dear,” he home—seeped into their handiwork. how to distinguish moralism from moral- was “scantly heeded” over there. The GETTY IMAGES / ity in the true sense. greatness he nurtured, of course, was to Mr. Tonguette has written about the arts for the Wall A highlight of the memoirs is William’s take hold here, after his literary son Street Journal, , and The career switch from the arts to “strenuous made a writing life for himself—on both Weekly Standard. He is the editor of Peter HULTON ARCHIVE Science in all its exactitude.” Henry calls sides of the Atlantic. Bogdanovich: Interviews.

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A new oral history of Hollywood’s “To experience it stoned, in the company of walking on the roof, and together we tried Golden Age, however, might leave some a charming, totally delighted schizophrenic to figure out her obsession with high readers thinking that the sincere sentiments girl—that’s the only way to see Disney - places.” This rather understated remark of many classic films masked a business land,” he says. As a portrait of local wreck- foretells Mary Jennifer’s demise in 1976, (and a town) that was essentially amoral. In age, this chapter would not be out of place when she died following a jump from a this book, Jean Stein—whose thin bibli- in Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. 22-storey building. Some years earlier, ography also includes oral histories of On the other hand, much of the material Jones herself made an attempt at suicide Robert F. Kennedy and Edie Sedgwick, concerning Warner Bros. studio head Jack by drowning, and her sad tale may reach both published decades ago—makes use Warner and his wife, Ann, is not half as its nadir in an anecdote from hairstylist of interviews with participants and ghastly as Salvador Dalí’s paintings of the Tomoyuki Takei, who recalls that the ac - observers to recount the fates of a quintet couple (reproduced, a bit too gleefully, tress never removed her makeup before of California-based families (the Dohenys, here). “As a child I was really frightened retiring to bed. “She said it was ‘in case I the Warners, and the Steins—the author’s of that portrait of Mrs. Warner,” Stein get sick at night and have to go to the hos- family, which included her father, Jules, a says, and we can see why: She sits in front pital. Somebody’s going to take a picture of founder of MCA—plus the assorted rela- of an apocalyptic desert landscape and has me, and I don’t want to be without make- tions of Jane Garland and Jennifer Jones). a touch of the Crypt Keeper about her. up,’” Takei says. “She did this every night.” The book’s prologue frames the picture: “Jack Warner was a great character, like Stein does herself no favors in present- Mike Davis, now an author, recalls working all of them,” says producer David Geffen. ing this material as oral history; instead of as a driver for Gray Line Tours. Assigned “They were remarkable guys, but they supplying background about the speakers to a route that snaked through Hollywood were monsters.” But was Warner really so in the text, she gives readers brief bio- and Beverly Hills, Davis elected not to buy different from most effective business- graphical notes at the end (which many addresses of celebrities, “so I just winged men? Son Jack Warner Jr. remembers his will find themselves referring to continu- it,” he says. “I’d pick out a big house and lie father pointing toward a “monstrous” ally). Key facts and potent observations get about who lived there.” Occasionally, a (there’s that word again) water tower lost amid the interviewees’ soliloquies; the savvy passenger called him out. “I remem- adorned with the words “Warner Bros.” as book comes to resemble a telephone party ber one time exuding ‘Here she is—I Love a kind of conversation-stopper during line dominated by gossipy bores. Lucy! There’s her house. We’ll slow down arguments with others. “He wanted to In the end, the laundry list of alternately so you can take photos,’” Davis says. stress that he ran this company and by God, tawdry and tedious tales is wearying. And “Then some lady in the back absolutely he did,” Jack Jr. says. Meanwhile, daughter it must be reiterated: No matter how freaks out. ‘I’ve been on this tour enough Barbara Warner Howard speaks of watch- strange, greedy, or ethically lacking a num- times to k now that’s not Lucille Ball’s ing dailies with her father at age eleven; ber of these long-departed people are, they house. She lives three blocks away.’” when she observantly spots a mix-up in often produced work that reflected higher The point, in case you missed it, is that screen direction during one scene, the old values. The book bolsters the idea that it is the image Hollywood projects of itself is man does not react favorably. “Two months best to distinguish entirely between the bogus, and that most are too dim to notice. later, I was sent to Switzerland,” she says. makers of the art and the art itself. Later, Davis wags his finger at passengers “They must have had the idea of sending Consider an amusing, only mildly dis- who have filed out at Grauman’s Chinese me away before, but my outspokenness turbing story told by Dennis Hopper’s Theatre “to go venerate the footprints,” clinched it.” Readers will be forgiven if daughter, Marin, about visits to the Malibu oblivious to homeless, drug-addicted, or they shrug their shoulders at this point. residence of Larry Hagman. “I remember otherwise unwell citizens around them. The chapter on Jennifer Jones is the going there, and it was so strange, because “Instead of being distressed by the huge book’s most absorbing. The actress who every Sunday he took a vow of silence, so moral discrepancy between the myth of would later star in Duel in the Sun and he wouldn’t speak to anyone,” she says, Hollywood and its current reality,” Davis Since You Went Away began life as Phylis adding that Hagman would dress up “in laments, “most of them only saw what Lee Isley in Tulsa, Okla., later taking the some kind of caftan with a hood” and already had been fixed in their minds.” To name of her first husband, actor Robert parade about the beach with a giant flag. be sure, this episode is unfortunate, but in Walker. Neither Christian name nor sur- Now, Larry Hagman was the son of leading with it, Stein is saying: Forget all name passed muster with producer David Mary Martin, the all-American actress and the hooey—here’s the real story. O. Selznick, who dashed off memos on singer who portrayed such paragons of The book certainly offers plenty of the matter. “Where the hell is that new virtue as Maria von Trapp in the Broadway ghoulish stories—none more so than that of name for Phylis Walker?” Se lznick writes production of The Sound of Music. (“Mary Jane Garland. In 1957, a group of young in 1942. “Personally, I would like to de - Martin is our ideal, our dream, our faith,” men are retained to serve as “special psy- cide on Jennifer and get a one-syllable wrote theater critic Harold Clurman.) That chiatric attendants” to Garland, the twenty - name that has some rhythm to it and that is her grown son partook in wacky weekend something, schizophrenic daughter of a easy to remember.” Selznick shepherded rituals does nothing to help us appreciate— railroad and real-estate tycoon; the misbe- Jones’s career, becoming her second hus- nor anything to diminish—her legacy as a gotten goal is to acclimate Garland to sup- band and father to daughter Mary Jennifer. performer, or his. posedly normal outings. Walter Hopps, Innocent enough beginnings, perhaps, To put it another way: Jack Warner then one of Garland’s “attendants,” recalls but what follows is bleak stuff. Psychiatrist might not have been the nicest guy in an expedition with her to Disneyland while Beatriz Foster says of Mary Jennifer: “She town, but he was still capable of produc- he was under the influence of marijuana. had this habit of going to high-rises, even ing My Fair Lady.

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Film Testimony From Hell

ROSS DOUTHAT

N the tangled debates about the Holocaust and theodicy, I often find myself coming back to a line from the Australian critic Clive IJames, criticizing one of the innumer- able attempts to trace the Shoah back to one specific, manageable taproot. “Not many of us,” James wrote, “in a secular age, are willing to concede that, in the form of Hitler, Satan visited the Earth, Géza Röhrig and Amitai Kedar in Son of Saul recruited an army of sinners, and fought and won a battle against God.” What this line gets at is the strange greenery, from a fresh-arriving train. It drawn, and Saul recognizes him—or so double effect of the Holocaust on reli- takes a few moments, at least, before he says; the movie allows for ambiguity gious belief. On the one hand, in the you accept what’s actually going about this—as his own son, born out of shadow of Auschwitz, faith quails, God’s on—that the clothes he helps people wedlock. The corpse is taken by a doc- presence seems to vanish, and the prob- hang up are bound for the furnace, the tor for autopsy, which allows Saul the lem of evil rises to its sharpest pitch. And jewels he helps them remove are des- time he needs to set out on a quest for a yet at the same time the Holocaust also tined for Nazi treasure chests, and the rabbi, so that he can give the boy a seems to be beyond secular and materi- people themselves . . . Jewish burial instead of consigning him alist categories: The annihilation of God’s And then it happens. Except, as with to the ovens. chosen people in a hellscape crafted most of the horrors in the movie, it hap- The quest is both complicated and with modern industrial precision and a pens slightly out of focus, in a corner of assisted by Saul’s half-accidental re- satan ic sense of “humor” (work makes the screen, while the camera stays with cruitment into a plot by his fellow you free; hurry up into the shower, Saul—following him and circling around Sonderkommandos, involving guns there’s coffee waiting for you) feels him and lingering only on Röhrig’s and explosives, cameras to document inherently metaphysical, the closest angular, impassive face. what’s happening, and the hope of thing to a proof of the existence of the The nightmare is always there, behind some kind of escape. (There was a real prince of this world as history has sup- or around or alongside him—a man Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz plied. Which should leave both the faith- being beaten, people being shot and late in the war, which succeeded in ful and the skeptical, if we’re honest, not pitched into pits, a corpse’s bare breast, damaging one of the crematoria and with either piety or unbelief, but with a a pile of naked limbs and torsos, worse killing a clutch of SS men; it ended the kind of supernatural fear. things still. But just as in a horror film (a way you would expect.) And both The achievement of Son of Saul, a genre that knows the devil exists but Saul’s singular mission and the larger Hungarian film recently honored with isn’t sure about God) the worst thing is plot are a race against the clock, the Oscar for best foreign film, is to what you can’t quite make out, what because the Sonderkommandos know capture that sense of metaphysical dread, hovers in the shadows or on the edge of that they’re scheduled for termination; to take us inside the death camps the way the frame, Son of Saul keeps you in a the Nazis disposed of their unwilling Dante takes us inside the Inferno— state of agony over what you could see, “helpers” every few months and re - except with no Virgil or Beatrice promis- and don’t want to, and fear that in the placed them with a new battalion. ing ascent. next moment you might. And then at a So Son of Saul offers, amid its hor- The movie’s unbearable subject is the certain point you realize that what the ror, two paths to resistance: one reli- Sonderkommandos, those Jews who movie is really doing is giving you a gious and one secular, one accepting of were employed—that is, enslaved—by sense of how the human mind would death’s inevitability and one still hop- the Nazis to help manage the mass mur- survive in such a hell: by looking, yet ing for escape. And it does not choose der of their fellow Jews. It opens with not seeing fully, or seeing only the min- between them, or ask us to judge either the camera attaching itself to one of imum required to stay alive. one superior. That is left to God these men—Saul Auslander (Géza There is a plot as well. That first load alone—wherever, in the most satanic Röhrig)—as he directs the crowds of of human bodies includes a boy who of all mankind’s works, His presence SONY PICTURES CLASSICS prisoners emerging, amid trees and lives for a moment after the gas is with- might be found.

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Happy Warrior BY SONNY BUNCH O.J. Trumps Trump

OMETHING surreal happened a few days back. The next three days on their DVRs), a record number for series cable news networks all cut away from the polit- premieres on the network. ical horse race and their current ratings cash cow, The show is an entertaining bit of overly dramatic silli- S Donald Trump, to focus on the O.J. Simpson trial. ness. But it’s also insightful in its treatment of reality news. It was a flashback to my childhood, when O.J. and We see the way the culture helped corrupt the case: Robert Marcia Clark and Johnnie Cochran were on television Shapiro trying to convince The New Yorker that it was about every day. O.J.’s trial for the vicious murders of Nicole the LAPD’s trying to frame a black man, Judge Lance Ito’s Brown and Ronald Goldman was inescapable. It was “reality preoccupation with celebrities, that sort of thing. news” in embryo. He was everywhere: broadcast networks, More tenuously—but far more humorously—American cable channels, newspapers, magazines. Crime Story is also, in a way, The Kim Kardashian Origin He was even in my schoolhouse: One of my more vivid Story. Astute viewers will perhaps remember that the memories from middle school is of milling about on the O.J. Simpson trial was the nation’s first introduction to hardwood basketball floor, waiting Robert Kardashian, Kim’s father. for gym class to end, when the over- And her presence looms over the head speakers crackled to life. “O.J. first couple of episodes, strangely Simpson has been found innocent,” enough. When O.J. hides out in the principal said. Or something like Robert Kar dashian’s house be fore it, anyway; 13-year-old Sonny prob- em bark ing on the infamous Bronco ably wasn’t ready to grapple with the chase, he pulls a gun out in the nuances of “innocent” versus “not future reality star’s bedroom. “Do guilty.” More clearly do I re member not kill your self in Kimmy’s bed- the sociology of the mo ment: room!” Robert plaintively cries, a African-American kids on one side line and an image that can only of the room whooping it up; white O.J. Simpson and Donald Trump prompt hard-to-stifle guffaws in the kids on the other, be mused. It may cognizant viewer. not have been the first time I noticed race as a concept rather Later, we see Kim and her siblings cheering O.J. on than a simple skin color, but it was certainly the most intense. during the chase. The scene is almost certainly fabricated, And then there I was 20 years later, looking at the wall of as is a conversation that Robert has with his kids at a televisions in the Washington Free Beacon’s “war room,” restaurant in the next episode. The family manages to listening to CNN talk about the discovery of a knife on the score primo seats in a crowded Los Angeles restaurant property O.J. once owned. It had been found years ago by because the hostess recognizes the father: “You’re Richard a construction worker and handed over to an off-duty cop Kordovian!” she yips, before guiding them to their seats who, for some odd reason, decided to keep it for himself. ahead of the waiting masses. Wowed by the star treatment The blood-stained implement spent years in a sock drawer she and her family are receiving, Kimmy looks awed. or some such, reappearing only when the cop remembered “We are Kardashians, and in this family, being a good per- that he still had it. son and a loyal friend is more important than being famous,” It’s such an obviously absurd story—one that the owner Robert says, trying to extinguish the stars flitting through of the construction company quickly and vociferously Kim’s eyes. “Fame is fleeting, it’s hollow. It means nothing denied, by the way—that it’s almost certainly false in some at all without a virtuous heart.” We, the audience, are meant manner. Didn’t really matter, though. There were the media, to giggle at these admonitions, knowing the path Kim and breathlessly covering the case yet again, running through her clan will travel to achieve stardom. But it’s a potent the thousands of hours of archived footage. O.J. trying on a reminder of just how our most vacuous, empty-headed, un - glove. O.J. hearing the not-guilty verdict. O.J. in a white productive “famous” person got her first taste of glory. Bronco. O.J. O.J. O.J. For at least a few hours that Friday, The only story capable of dethroning the current king of the Juice was loose again. hare-brained reality-news spectacle, Donald Trump—he Perhaps it’s no accident that “O.J.’s” knife was “redis- of the casinos, reality-TV shows, beauty pageants, and covered” recently, given that the case is the subject of a mediocre steaks—was the original reality-news spectacle, melodramatic and critically acclaimed true-crime minis- O.J. Simpson. That his case, which would (eventually) eries. American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson is bring us Kim Kardashian—she of the sex tape, emojis, doing big numbers for the cable network FX: The premiere never-ending E! series, and constant coverage on magazine garnered more than 8.3 million viewers in “live plus three” racks—is the only thing that could put a damper on cable (that is, people who watched it the day it aired or over the news’s Trumpmania is fitting. And not something that should comfort the Ameri - PHOTOS - Mr. Bunch is the executive editor of the Washington Free Beacon. can people. GLOBE

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GREAT 20TH CENTURY CATHOLIC THINKERS

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